White carrara marble turned yellow after installation

[MarkTarkus]

Hi, I installed a white Carrara marble shower 2 weeks ago. I shuffled the tiles from all the boxes before installing, used white kerabond over kerdi on the entire thing. All mud was mixed with water from the same source over 5 consecutive days. 2 weeks later (today) I get a call from the home owner. They looked at the shower this morning and one entire row around about eye level in the shower has turned bright yellow, almost like someone took a highlighter marker to it. They have not used the shower since I installed it, no one has even touched it since I left. It's mind boggling. The weirdest part about it is that it is not random at all. One full row around the whole shower is yellow. I used no sealers, cleaners or anything on the stone, just some non sanded light gray grout. I went back the day after completing the job and all looked great. The yellowing seems to have appeared over night. Does anybody have any experience with this? I would appreciate any advice.

[TileArt1]

New one on me. Got any pics?

Is there anything specific directly behind that row? Like the seams of your drywall (if that's what was used)? Dunno how that would affect it specifically, but is anything different behind the tile in that area that isn't anywhere else?

Copper pipes? Just throwin' blind darts here

[Scottish Tile and Stone]

Has to be something leaching through if its just one solid row, and nothing above or below it.

[tileguynky]

Where was the stone bought. I have dealt with a local place that sells their chain's White Carrara. Their stone comes out of China and I have ran into it having a yellow tint. Once this stone is wet, looks like White Carrar. As it dries back out, it would turn yellow again. Also, some of the vendors I have dealt with have a Carrara the has a yellow tint to it. Could be a bad group of stone, or something that was cross contaminated at the warehouse level.

[MarkTarkus]

Crazy huh? No seams in my kerdi or backerboard anywhere near that row. No pipes up that high. The stone is italian. I have had some yellow Carrara before but this is all from random boxes and didn't yellow until almost 2 weeks after install. I agree, it must be something leaching through because it's one solid row but I don't know what it could be. I used the same mortar everywhere. I'm stumped. Any suggestions on trying to get the yellow out? I'll probably just have to replace the row. ?????? I didn't have my camera with me unfortunately.

[scuttlebuttrp]

Is there new paint or a new light source?

I painted my MIL's hall bath a light green. Now her white tub has a green tint to it.
I've seen lighting and canary yellow paint do a serious number on black grout. Customer swore we used a different grout in parts of his bath.

[Davestone]

Typically a Carrera would turn a gray if it had iron oxide, although i have seen a yellow tint,which may be magnesium...or just a haze from the grout. I have personally seen this with some grouts, so bad in fact i thought it was pollen.Why it is just one row stumps me also.

[pack-man]

i have a marble counter top that has turned yellow too. it happened from light somehow since where items are kept this isn't a problem. there are outlines of the my deoderant etc. i can't put my finger on whether it happened before or after i installed all cfl's in there.

[Davestone]

Hmmm,uv of some sort huh? Ya know when they polish these slabs they usually use a uv stable coating. Maybe they are shortcutting and not using it,and the stones are sensitive.Maybe Michael of Stonehenge will see this,he'd have some input.

[scuttlebuttrp]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Chineese drywall?

[ob1kanobee]

Not that I don't believe you but I'm having a hard time with it just being one full row around the shower.

How is the lighting?
Can you take a picture or two?

If it is just one row then I doubt it will stay that way, it should spread. Now if it was at the bottom of the floor or something but eye level?

I have seen a lot of weird stuff and this would rank up there with weird. It will be interesting to see if the problem expands to other tiles........

If you can take some pictures and post them, I will forward them to a guru who might be able to tell me what is going on.

[scuttlebuttrp]

Maybe a contaminated box?
Did you install the stone horizontally and forget to mix up a box?

[MarkTarkus]

I will post a picture on Monday when I get back over there. I would go with the contaminated box theory but I cut every tile in half to do a 6 x 12 running bond and then mixed up tiles from all the boxes before installation. I know it sounds a little far fetched. I guess you'd have to see it.

[Brad Denny]

Bad saw water?!?!?

[MarkTarkus]

Hmmm...maybe that's where my helper was going pee.