Interesting approach to tiling?!

[David Robinson]

I've paid someone to tile my en suite. After the saga of tiling the bathroom, I don't have time to do the en suite myself.

Looking at what he's doing, he's either a genius or an idiot. I'm wondering if anyone here can tell me which...

The tiles are 8mm thick 45cm x 30cm porcelain. The walls are bare plaster. The adhesive is ultra tile ProFlex SP +ES.

The tiler seems to have stuck the tiles on using four large blobs of adhesive per tile - and that's it. No sign of any application of adhesive to the walls or tiles using a toothed trowel - apart from these four blobs, covering (at a rough guess) about 40% of the area of the tile when pressed on, there's no sign of anything behind the tiles.

Doing it this way, and presumably using a board or straight piece of wood to push them against the wall, he's managed to make the tiles sit perfectly flat, despite there being some very unflat bits of wall. In one place (the worst - by the window) the _back_ of the tile is a full

10mm proud of the wall.

It's almost like dot-and-dab, but with tiles rather than plasterboard! (No, as far as I know, the guy isn't a plasterer! He's also a plumber).

So, is this a genius approach to wonky walls, or a disaster waiting to happen?

Cheers, David.

P.S. Not happy anyway - I'd drilled all the holes in the walls and put screws loosely in, so he could see where I needed to fix heated towel rail, mirror etc and how big the screw holes needed to be. Assumed(!) he'd drill matching holes through tiles - oh no - he's removed the screws, and tiled over the holes without a trace. ******!

[Bolted]

The hat, stirrups and chaps tell you everything you need to know. What was his horse called?

[Owain]

At some point that tile will crack.

Owain

[Mark]

it's the generally accepted way of tiling a wonky wall or floor if the owner or bodger can't be assed to make the surface flat first.

[Phil L]

But if he used a notched trowel, applying an even bed of adhesive, the resulting tiles would simply follow the contours of the existing wall, which is very uneven. The OP needs to decide whether he wants a flat tiled wall or an uneven tiled wall with a solid bed of adhesive behind the tiles.

Failing that, he should have had the walls skimmed flat prior to getting them tiled

[Alan Braggins]

[...]

I thought it wasn't recommended for showers or equally wet areas though. Depending on what's in your en suite, that might not be a problem. (10mm gap behind a tile does seem excessive though.)

[Mark]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"it's generally accepted",  seldom recommended unless your tiler is a plumber. 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Normal way of doing it if the walls are uneven.

[David WE Roberts]

Tradesmen are not psychic - often they are very good with their hands but not particularly academic. In a case like this you need to be very clear - tell the tiler why the screws are there and also that you need him to do more than just tile - also to cut holes in the tiles to accomodate the screws. If you don't include these extras up front then the tiler won't cost for them and won't do them.

[stuart noble]

I think a pro might offer you the option of levelling the walls first, but it's an extra day's work. Fixings can be a problem otherwise

[ARWadsworth]

Like the decorator on the 6 newbuilds that I worked on. The joiner had prepared all the doors and frames to take those self closing chainsprings. The decorator filled all the holes, sanded the filler smooth and painted over them.

[Tabby]

What else is he supposed to do? He's done the only practical option.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The work required to line up screw holes in tiles with those pre-existing would be horrendous. You drill the holes after fitting the tiles.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Levelling walls perfectly would likely require a different trade.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

More likely he thought no one in their right mind would do it this way. Ie arse about face.

[tim....]

Yep, decorator did that to me when I had removed the radiators so that he could paint behind.

tim

[David Robinson]

I managed it to within 1/2 a mm in the other bathroom, and this was my first attempt.

It seemed quite an obvious thing to do, given the nuisance of drilling through porcelain tiles vertical on a wall, vs drilling through them when horizontal laying on a floor or workbench. Easier to keep wet. Gravity acting in a useful direction. Resulting dirt only has to be cleaned off one tile. No real problem if the drill bit slips or the tile cracks - just use another tile. etc.

Maybe it was beyond this tiler though - he's cut 28mm holes for the

15mm pipes, and some of those still catch the edge of the hole!

Cheers, David.

[David Robinson]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

The bit where the tiles are 10mm away really did need fixing, but wasn't apparent until the window sill was removed.

As for the rest, unless you have an exceptional tiler (I know _one_, but I know several more who are just average) then the unevenness of the walls is fairly typical, and getting them re-plastered wouldn't help at all. I would have tackled it by packing some of the tiles where necessary, but I doubt the finished result would have been as flat as this. With 45cm tiles, and small undulation can be visible.

To answer another question: yes, it's dot-and-dabbed around the shower too. I know - if/when the grout fails, the wall will rot away. Though unless you use cement boards or tank the area, I think that's inevitable if the grout fails - it's just a question of how long it takes.

I'll tell you what - I wish I'd done this myself and made my own set of mistakes, rather than sat here worrying about someone else's. At least I can get on with electrics and plumbing while someone else is tiling.

Cheers, David.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

FWIW, I always use the dot method apart from on a perfectly flat wall. Very rare in this old house - pretty well restricted to new plasterboard ones. And have never had problems later.

As regards fixing through tiles - if you have lightweight ones fixed by the 'approved' method and you tighten up the fixing too much they'll break too.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Fine - but I still say it's not worth the bother. Just drill new holes complete. The chances are you might want to align the fitting with the tiles anyway - so it won't be in exactly the same place as before.