Please help - glass tile is cracked and crooked

17 years ago

I have a glass mosaic tile border in my shower. From a distance it looks okay, but when you get up close many of the tiles are cracked and chipped. The tile installer says that this is just how glass tile is, but when I look at the uninstalled sheets there are only a few that have tiny little chips in the corners, nothing like what I am seeing in the border. When they were installing the border I heard them banging and I am afraid that they chipped the tile by hitting it too hard (I think they were having trouble getting it to adhere?). Does this look right to you? Am I being too nitpicky? It doesn't help that there are a few sections where the tiles are installed very unevenly. Some of the problem was grout and glue left on the tiles, which I spent about two hours cleaning off although it is still not 100% off (and is that my job to do or should the tile installer have done it?). But even after getting off the excess grout there are plenty of real chips and cracks. I tried to mark the worst ones but there are tons of less obvious ones also.

The top edge of this picture is the underside of a shelf, which is why it looks kind of messy (although I kind of think it shouldn't look as messy as it does - really, this part looks just awful).

The real question is what do I do about this? Do I have them rip out the border and start over? Pop out individual tiles? How much will that mess up everything else? Or should I leave the whole thing alone? I am sick about this - any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

-Lisa

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Comments (5)

igloochic
17 years ago
I hate to tell you what I'd do...but you asked.

I'd rip it out and hire a new installer. That looks like crap. It would bother me to no end!

I had to rip out a very expensive floor for bad install. In the end...I'm glad I did, though it held up the job for a few months while I searched for a tile guy :(
bill_vincent
17 years ago
Could be worse!

Most of what you showed really isn't that bad, except for the very last picture. That one's pretty bad. Other than that, there might be a 1/2 dozen pieces of tile that you've marked that I'd say go beyond what can be expected. Keep in mind, if you get that close up to ANY tile, you're going to see all kinds of chips and/ or imperfections along the edges that would make your hair stand on end. Especially with a medly like that, the idea is to stand back and take it all in as a whole. I'd HATE to show you some of the sizing pictures I've taken of the work I've been doing over the last few weeks at this hotel I'm doing!! Pieces of Jerusalem stone as much as 1/8" difference in size from one piece to the next, and we're using an 1/8" joint!! There are areas where I've had no choice but to cut the factory edges off in order to be able to use pieces of tile, and other times where I've had to throw whole sections of a wall out of whack to make it look GOOD!

One thing I've found in the few jobs I've done with glass tile-- although they're not all as rustic as what I just showed (it's supposed to be like that, kinda resembling sea glass), I've yet to come across any that DIDN'T have alot of the small chips and dings that you show above.
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annkathryn
17 years ago
If the tiles came out of the box chipped like that, would you have wanted them put on the wall? Or would you have stopped work and asked for unchipped tiles to begin with? I guess I don't see why glass tiles should start out chipped to begin with, and why the original poster should accept tiles that started out unchipped but now have so many places where they're dinged. I had glass tiles installed in my hall bath and don't think a single one was chipped, either in the box or by the time they got on the wall.
lmb1123
Original Author
17 years ago
See, that is the thing - the uninstalled tiles do have a few minor chips on some of the corners of a small percentage of the tiles, but NOTHING like what it looks like installed. If it was just some chipped corners, I would let it go, but it is seriously almost half of the installed tiles, and some of the chips are much more than just corners, and that doesn't seem right to me. I really think it is something that they did during the installation, because there are also accent "diamonds" of the glass tile in the shower and on the floor, and not a single one of them has any chips at all. I think they were just banging on the border with the float to try to get them to adhere better and it chipped the tiles. And then of course there is the issue of the crookedly set tiles, especially in the last picture.

So, Bill V, would you recommend just leaving it be then? Is there a way to fix it that wouldn't be as major as ripping the whole border out and starting over? It seems like fixing it tile by tile would almost be harder to do.
bill_vincent
17 years ago
Not only harder, but almost impossible to do without chipping MORE tiles. I'd say you've got one of two choices. With the exception of the area in the last pic which would need to be completely removed and changed, either remove it all or leave it alone, and if the chips bother you that much, I guess that tells you which direction to go.