Re-tiling Balcony / Terrace

Sydney47 · May 05, 2011 4:35 pm

Hi,

I have a tiled balcony on our house above our living area which has developed a leak. I understand the only way to fix it properly is a rip up and replace. There is sheeting underneath (can see from looking in the ceiling of the room below). The joists that I can see up there through the ceiling seem good, no rot that I can tell.

Sadly, the quotes for the work so far have been very high, i.e. $300 per sqm for rip up, waterproof and retile, not including the tiles! It a 42 sqm area, and is nice and open and flat so isn't too difficult I'd think.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what it should cost? Is this price typical?

Also, are there viable alternatives to ripping the whole lot up?

I'm in Sydney.

Cheers

BuilderPaul · May 05, 2011 6:51 pm

We work on $100/m2 for tiling (incl 20/m2 for tiles) + $60/m2 for water-proofing. Rip-up,say $15/m2, + rubbish removal, say $500. Even my price is $9k.

BUT, it will be leaking at the edges and low points. The main reason is that no decks over about 15yrs old had any water proofing. A solution is to waterproof the perimeter. Take out tiles to about 300mm, waterproof, re-tile. If you get up in the ceiling and sniff around you will eventually see where it it leaking. Get a hose and let it run over the deck.

Paul

m_shawry · May 06, 2011 1:04 pm

What a common nightmare, I'm looking at my verandah which also leaks.
It was fibreglass waterproofed. Wouldn't use it again. The problem is that even ripping it up and replacing probably won't fix the problem forever, its the corners and where the verandah meets your walls where the problem usually ******. Never in the middle. I will probably never build a house again with a verandah over a living area.
My tiles shower bases have all performed perfectly over 3 years so I still think that this is ok if done properly.

Sydney47 · Aug 24, 2011 7:11 pm

Just thought I'd update with what quotes I got back.

I got 4 quotes, 2 builders, 2 tilers. All quotes were for rip out, screed, waterproof and tile. I supply grout and tiles. Total area in the end was 65sqm.

The 2 Tilers $12,550 & $13,387

The 2 builders $23,389 & $12,100

Unfortunately, I hit another issues with the work. The 3 lower quotes I tried to go with, but as soon as I asked for a contract to sign with them, and warranty insurance as legally required by nsw office of fair trading for all work over 12k, all 3 tradies proceeded to basically s&$t themselves and backed out of the whole thing!

I'm now back to square 1 to try and find someone to do the work :-(

Cazafitz · Aug 06, 2013 6:46 pm

Hi there

I realise this is an old post but we have the same problem and I'm interested to know how you fixed it in the end?

Sydney47 · Aug 06, 2013 8:52 pm

Hi,

We got a builder in the end. It cost $16k, plus the tiles.

Unfortunately the builder we did get had too many jobs on and ours dragged on and took close to 6 months to complete. The rip out took a day for 2 people, then it was screed, waterproofed, tiled and grouted. The builders waterproofer was very unreliable and was the main contributor to the delay.

Cheers