Any hope for this broken tile?

[geoffhazel]

I'm laying a new floor of 12x24 porcelain tiles. They are sitting on a heated floor mat. I had them covered with paper while I painted the room and grouted the walls, and when I pulled the paper off I found one with a cracked corner! It must have had a ladder on it and not fully supported by thinset. The 1 inch corner piece is fully loose, I removed it for inspection. This tile is is in the traffic area of the bathroom, not off in a corner or under the vanity.

If I decided to pull out the entire piece, I could do that but I'd need to buy a whole box of tile, I didn't have even one left over. Also, I'm a little nervous about busting out the tile with the wires under it. I think they'd be OK but I'm just nervous about it.

I'm wondering if there's any way to glue this back in and somehow cover the crack line so it's MOSTLY not visible. I've seen some different videos on things you can use to fill and then paint over cracks, even nail polish.

I know a repair isn't "the best" and if there are good reasons for not even trying, please let me know. I'd say if I can repair it so it doesn't jump out at you when you walk in, (like it does to me now) and is as solid as the rest of the floor, I'd be willing to give it a shot. Worst case is I have to go to plan "A" and tear out the entire tile.etc etc.

Now's the time to do this as I was just getting ready to grout today and found this problem.

[Gozo]

What an unusual break pattern. I would expect just a straight triangle pop off the corner. You CAN remove the tile over the heating wires, but not likely by just prying it up. That will probably tear up or damage the wires. If/when you have a matching replacement tile, you can try to break/cut the tile into lots of little pieces and remove them one by one and separating them from the mortar underneath. A tedious job and still risks damaging the wires. If you didn’t get full coverage under the tile, it might be an advantage in you case.
A repair option is to use an epoxy that’s close to that color, maybe adding some colorant to get it as close as possible. Latapoxy is kind of a pinkish beige like what your picture shows.
Others will likely have additional ideas. Not the best thing happen to an in process install in any case.

[geoffhazel]

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, there wasn't full thinset under that corner and I'm paying the price. And actually what you can't see is that the corner IS broken, too - but it's a hairline crack that's just about invisible and I'm not too concerned about it.

[Davy]

Regardless of what you do with this piece, I would go ahead and buy a box of tiles in case you need another one or two in the future. What will you do in 2-3 years when this tile is discontinued ?