Pic of the WORST tile job?

[Mike Cutler]

John

I kinda failed at one corner of the shower I built in the early 90's. It took some time to fail but it eventually did, and now it leaks in one corner, and the shower receptor cracked. I didn't take into account seasonal expansion/contraction in New England

I didn't know anything then, or enough to take any shortcuts, so I did it "per the book". It's going to be a pain in the hienie to rip out. It's going to be fun though.

[ssailer]

I was called in to clean up grout mess and fill in about a bazillion pinholes and omissions in the grout. Poor guy had been screwed over by 3 different "contractors".

Didn't have the heart to tell him that his $20/sq ft. glass tile had been installed backwards! I just gritted my teeth and fixed the grout.

[Hammy]

Didn't have the heart to tell him that his $20/sq ft. glass tile had been installed backwards! Scott

OUCH !!!!! Hammy

[Scottish Tile and Stone]

Hard to tell from the pics, but how do you know the glass was installed backwards?

[Chad Deiter Company]

Yah I'm with Scott how do you know it's backwards .. I know some are beveled was it that way .

[ssailer]

It is hard to tell from the pichers, but he had some partial sheets left over and they had the clear plastic sheet on the front and the front edges of the tiles are rounded. Lots of the tiles on the backsplash are pitted and dull, and the edges are rough and jagged.

That plastic was barely holding the tiles on. I think the grout is the only thing holding them on the wall.

Scott

[Muddman]

I think I would have told him it was on backwards, then gave him a price to redo it. Hopefully he would be impressed you were the first of the now four contractors to realize this.

[ssailer]

Gregg,

You'd have to know this guy and what he's been through. 3 contractors took all his money and left him in a mess that he can't even live in. His wife up and left him after 25 years with no reasons or explanation. I spoke with the current contractor that's trying to help him clean up the mess and one of his neighbors who knows him well. We all agreed that it would be best not to tell him. It would drive him crazy knowing it was in wrong. And he doesn't have the money to even buy new tile. We might be able to piece them in one by one, but he couldn't afford to pay anyone for that.

It doesn't look horrible. I just recognize the back of a tile when I see one. He has no idea.

[Brad Denny]

That's awful, Scott. See what bad tile work does to a relationship.

[Houston Remodeler]

We (unfortunately) lay a lot of that particular glass tile and yep, its in backwards. You can tell by the little light 'puckers' at the bottom of each tile, particularly in the left photo. Lord knows I hate that stuff anyway.

[Bill Vincent]

If that tile was installed backwards, I wonder if that means a good dousing with water and it all comes off the paper mounting in sheets?

[CRB]

Actually Bill those mosaics set onto plastic are a PITA since the fixative is far too strong! The thinset should be of rapidset type because the removing of the film pulls the mosaic pieces off any unset adhesive bed, unless fully set. This of course means fine tuning adjustments are not possible.
Utterly hopeless 'on paper' solution to a percieved problem, where the makers have no intercourse with installers.
That said, of course it doesnt mean they will stay on the wall sucessfully.

Once again a very let down homeowner..probably told how those ' little tiles' are easy to install because they are all on a big sheet...

Colin

[GraniteGirl]

Have you ever tried a heat gun to soften the glue on the plastic to remove the sheet? Never installed those things, but have had to use heat to soften taciturn glue on MacTac once or twice

[CRB]

Ah - good idea. I havent, but will keep it in mind when the next job using those comes along, thanks. Still making more work and increasing difficulty of getting a top class job out of the material though. Who on earth 'product tested' this idea in the first place??

[Houston Remodeler]

When we install that particular glass tile (ocean____) often times the edges of the sheets get smooshed in from normal handling of the boxes. This makes the sheets of tiles not square but more pillow shaped. If that makes sense. We do 2 things; We stack the sheets like bricks to help avoid the eye catching the lines and having it look like a bunch of 12 inch square. We also take a razor and slit the top and or bottom columns of tiles on each edge, say 2 or 3 tiles away from the corner, 3 or 4 tiles up, to be able to shift them over to the side and help hide the smooshed look from the box. And of course everything has to be done in whole tiles.