Uneven Grout Drying

[TaxiMommi]

I am trying to figure out what went wrong. I had someone come about 2 weeks ago to regrout my master shower floor. He regrouted the tile as I had seen it done before by starting with scraping out the old grout, etc. The problem that I have is that the grout seems to have stopped drying (even with a fan blowing on it as suggested by the contractor) and there are areas of grout, sometimes 6 X 8 tiles that have a dark, almost wet looking grout (dry to the touch) and then there are areas where the grout has dried to the light bisque color.

The contractor has told me that there must have been water under the tile (new home!) and that the grout he installed is soaking up the water that was underneath. I was told to try drying the grout with a a hair dryer which has had little or no effect at all.

Any suggestions? I am totally frustrated and don't know what to do next. We aren't using the shower as we intended on sealing it, but now I don't know if this is from a bad grout mix or could he be right?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

Mary

[Hamilton]

In a shower its hard to say what is wrong. There are a few possibilities.
The grout could have been bad
The installer could have been careless and
used some kind of method that went wrong.
The shower pan could have bird baths retaining
water, not letting the grout dry evenly.
Your weep holes on the bottom half of the drain
could be clogged. Not real sure, and even visiting
in person it would take some inspection to figure it out.
Best of luck.

[KenH83]

...As a tile contractor, I would never recommend a fan to help dry the grout quicker.. Grout needs to cure naturally.

[Hamilton]

Ken i think the grouting was done a couple weeks ago, and she still
cannot get it to dry out.

[KenH83]

AH... sounds like a bigger problem then

..is it still soft?

[dohja4433]

what brand of grout was it? I've been having problems lataly with mapei being splotchy,maybe it's not actually wet.Maybe the grout wasn't mixed properly.Once when I was a helper we were mixing alot of grout on this job and being the only helper I was doing all the mixing.Well I was getting pretty tired of it so I got the bright idea to use a mixer even though I new I shouldn't but I didn't know why.I soon found out when when the grout was splotchy and it looked like hell.You can only imagine how mad my boss was when my little experiment just so happened to be on Tom Clancy's house.Sure glad my boss was one of my best friends too,don't think I would of still had a job after that one!