Ouch! I don’t have any advice but I feel your pain!

• COULD be heat related- what do the stove instructions say regarding clearances? Since it has an integrated backguard I'm guessing that isn't the problem. Is this new construction or remodel? Walls or openings changed? Any other work happened before or since? Any photos during construction? That isn't a pocket door on the left of the stove is it?

If that's a Wolf range, that wall apparently has to be noncombustible and placing noncombustible tile over a drywall and wood stud wall does not make that wall noncombustible according to the NFPA.

I doubt the crack is from heat; I'm betting on improper substrate preparation. I've seen cracked floor tile replaced that cracked again, so the cure could be worse than the disease.

Shouldn't be heat related as tile is a very heat resistant material. My guess is a problem with the underlayment.. If the tile installed is very skilled he might be able to remove some of the tile, fix the problem with the underlayment and patch in new tile. If the result of that isn't to your liking then would ask your contractor to rip it all out and start over.

Hi thanks it’s an existing pocket door that was there prior to the renovation. No openings were changed. They said tiling over a pocket door frame should be fine , guess not? It’s a new wolf range. I am technically supposed to have a 10 inch back guard against a non combustible wall per the wolf manual but sales guy said the 5 inch ( what I have ) is fine. Again maybe not. I think the contractors did a poor job on the substrate also. Is there anything to be done short of tearing out entire wall and redoing? I can just leave it I’m just worried the crack will get wider ?

Did they actually frame in the doorway not just slap on a sheet of drywall ? IMO the substrate was not prepared properly and BTW the sales guy won't be repairing this when the house burns down becuase you did not follow the install directions on the Wolf. In my experience almost every tile install with cracking is poor substrate prep yes it can be fixed but not without ripping out that part of the wall and doing the subsrate properly and if you are lucky the issue is the doorway and that is the piece behind the range.

Thanks , so I have the 2021 new model 36 inch wolf duel fuel and this is what my manual says. ( attached photo ). I took this to mean I do not need a riser at all because I only have the 6 burner, I do not have a charbroiler or griddle. The sales guy said 10 inch riser but he was not reading from this 2021 install manual. I think there is a lot of confusion on this. Yes they did frame in the pocket door properly with a pocket door kit.

Improper substrate not bridging between the pocket and the regular wall. I would want to remove all the tile and the drywall and go back with a cement board that bridges the whole area. Hopefully one of the tile experts will chime in

The framing for the pocket door could well be framed properly for a pocket door. But that does not mean that the wall covering the pocket is rigid enough to support the tile without cracking. I would think even a slight difference of rigidity of the wall at the interface between the pocket framing and conventional wall framing would be enough to cause this slight cracking. I have two pocket doors with tile on the wall over the pocket (bathrooms) and particularly the one with the heavy solid core door has been reinforced on both sides with plywood, and two layers of cement board on the tile side. The wall is slightly thicker than normal as a result. And there is also not an interface between "pocket" and "non pocket" in the middle of the tile either.

It's the pocket door plywood next to the drywall, different movement. @HALLETT & Co. and I both tried to bring it up 6 months ago to no avail.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6191134/where-to-put-outlet-next-to-range-to-meet-code

Any resolution yet?

It's possible the whole wall should have had another layer of substrate (just to make it all even) with it going crossways across that joint so that there were no single seams, everything would be overlapping. Yes it would make the entire wall a little thicker and affect door jambs and such.

Hi! Yes thank you this was me, I was trying to get back to this post to get this photo. I remember your comments and I don’t know why they didn’t put another layer of cement board on top of all of this they assured me it wasn’t necessary. The contractor came back out and basically said this is why they didn’t want to do a pocket door here. they said they can cut out and replace the cracked tiles but they don’t want to pull out the entire wall and redo obviously. I told them I need to think about it as if it doesn’t get worse I am inclined to leave the crack. If it gets worse then something needs to be done.

Also I went back to the other thread I did not see the last comments re the plywood meeting at the drywall! I’m not understanding why an experienced tile contractor would go ahead with that. They did our primary bath and other tile work for us in the past with no issue.

A mesh over the joint prior to the thinset might do the trick alone. The next solution better than that would be a slip joint, then mesh, then thinset. But you'd have to be careful of not creating a hump there.

This should be the contractor's dime since they didn't know, but should have, then misled you.

Thank you they said they would cover the repair. I’m confident they will try to make it right once I make a decision. At this point I just don’t want to make it worse and have noticeable patched in tiles, or even have them tear out a large portion and redo the seam only to have it crack again as someone above mentioned it might unless the entire wall is redone. The crack is not noticeable right now I’m just worried about what it will look like in 2 years time.

What if you replace the tile with a sheet of stainless steel?

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Great thread. good teaching moment.

I put a steel sheet over my tiles behind the stove ..makes cleaning a lot easer !