Tenting

[madmantrapper]

Have you ever seen a floor tent after being down for twenty years? Went to look at a job where the floor tented. Found the floor was laid with thinset over residue from an asbestos floor removal. I don't think it was really tented but buckled from the debris getting under the tiles. Anyway I wish I had taken pictures, it was interesting to see.

[Davy]

Yep, seen it several times. Many times it's from the floor warming up due to the sun shining in thru large windows. The floor is usually grouted tight to the walls, no room to expand or move.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Was the tile installed tight to any of the walls or grouted tight to any of the walls?

[Jim Farrell Tiler]

i fixed one that was about 40 years old, in a school toilet block, no sun on it, two rows of tiles in the middle of the floor popped up

[cx]

Paul, our friend Dave Gobis , back when he ran the CTEF, had many photos of tenting, some quite dramatic and some as much as thirty years after the installation as I recall. Twenty year old installations can certainly tent given the right (or wrong, more accurately) conditions.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[Dave Gobis]

Oldest pictures in the collection are a bonded mud floor in a basement that tented after 64 years.

[Houston Remodeler]

Was the warranty still good?

[Davy]

I remember looking at a tented floor (entryway) and the lady said that when the floor tented, it sounded like a shot gun going off. Shook her up for sure.

Another floor tented on one of the first warm days of the season. The homeowner decided to turn on the A/C to part of the house but since they weren't using the other part of the house, they shut the doors and left that side of the house hot. The floor on the hot side popped and tented. Again, large areas with no soft joints and grouted tight to the walls.

Another floor that I tore out had a large living rm, about 20x20. There were large windows covering the whole west side wall that let a lot of sun in. I previously tiled a bathroom upstairs and this large living room floor was fine. A few years later the LR floor tented. I yanked it out and they replaced it with hardwood.

It's funny how people scream when the floor tents but during construction they are normally against soft joints installed in their floor.

[madmantrapper]

The room is 11 feet by 15. It was not grouted tight to walls. Way out of warranty, it was not installed by us.

[Dave Gobis]

If something raises up in the air it has to be restrained someplace. It wants to occupy more space than it has and is restricted from doing so.

[Just In Tile LLC]

When the cause is looked at, is it grouted to the bottom plate, drywall, wood trim Dave Gobis? Drywall is pretty soft so I would think it would compact before it pushed tile to tent.

Why don't we see more showers tent with tempature swing of hot water suddenly hitting tile?

I know not to grout against walls and lock tile jobs in but I am curious to the answers to these question. Guess I'm playing devil's advocate

[Davy]

Justin, it's usually grouted to the baseboard. The sheetrock doesn't compact as easily as you would think. The tented floors I've replaced weren't bonded real well to begin with. The tile was usually bonded to texture and paint. Although, I could see even a well bonded floor tenting.

In my opinion, showers are so small, it's not a problem. The floors I've seen tented have been larger floors, say 20x20 or similar size. I'm sure it could happen but I've never seen a bath floor tent.

[Kman]

Had one that tented over a slab several years ago in a fairly new house. I thought it was tiled or grouted to the framing, but I pulled the trim and found out it wasn't.

Extreme temperature changes seem to bring about enough movement to cause problems sometimes. These particular tile would rise and fall from morning to night.

[Davy]

Back in the 1980's, I saw several jobs that tented that were all the same clay paver. After looking at one of those jobs, I took home one of the extra tiles the lady had left over. I believe it was a 6x6 tile. The next time I had my saw set up, I cut the tile down into a 2x6. I then took it back home and started measuring it. Nothing scientific but I wanted to see how much it would expand with temperature change. I have a micrometer that will measure to 1/1000th of an inch. With the edges of the tile nice and square, I marked the tile in a certain spot and after measuring several times, I could get the same reading as long as I was measuring on my mark. I set the tile in the frig for 30-45 minutes and took a measurement and it would read around 1/1000th smaller than it did at room temperature. Then I put it in the oven and heated it to around 120 degrees. It would expand 2/1000th's bigger than it was at room temp.

I know these temps were kinda extreme but when you have a large room of tiles, it doesn't take much expansion from each tile to cause a lot of stress and push.

These clay paver tiles were installed in a large house in Dallas that had a huge gameroom. I guess it was at least 50 ft long and nearly that wide, grouted tight to the walls. The homeowners had divorced and the lady got the 11,000 sq ft house and was living there alone. With a limited income, she kept the A/C off in that part of the house. Tented tiles all over the place.

[Dave Gobis]

Justin, drive your car over a piece of drywall and see what happens, nothing. Tenting is caused by restricted movement. All tile grows with changes in heat and moisture. Thermal expansion is a constant back and forth force. Typical porcelain tile has a growth rate of .000005 per degree F. Moisture expansion on the other hand is long term, one way, and very slowly occurring. Typically there is not enough mass of length and accompanying force in a shower to cause an issue. However, I have been in some health clubs where they were.

To what Davy is saying, almost every year we get calls from snowbirds opening their condo's in FL that have sat with the heat and air off from April to October that have tented floors. There was one building some years ago I did about 5-6 units. Were there other things going on, sure, rarely just one thing is bad.

It is what it is. Tenting is an all the time call for me and I have had to prove the reasons a bunch of times over the years.