Bad tile job. What happened here?

2 years ago

We had two bathrooms and a small entryway tiled with octagon-and-dot mosaic. The bathrooms turned out good enough, but for some reason the entryway displays an unacceptable level of slop. We'll be insisting that the tiler redo that section, but now I'm contemplating the cause, besides a blind installer.

If the mosaic was jostled while spreading grout, wouldn't that indicate that it wasn't firmly adhered to the thinset? And that makes me wonder if the rest of the floor suffers from the same defect, even the sections that look fine now. Are we looking at the possibility of chronically loose tiles?

All of those distorted black diamonds hurt my eyes. We hired a contractor, and not the cheapest one, for this. So what happened here? And what's the best fix?

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Comments (6)

HU-952741406
2 years ago
Floor and Decor tile?
millworkman
2 years ago
This was all on mesh correct? Who was the tile setter?
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hankshanker1
Original Author
2 years ago
This is the Satori brand from Lowe's, all on mesh. We hired a contractor to handle the renovations of a 60-year-old lake house, this being the first project. The contractor hired the tile setter.
just_janni
2 years ago
I feel like the first picture shows an annoying level of sloppiness, the second a WTF level and the third feel like one of these series of 300 6's and then there's one 8 mixed in and you have to find it. I also realize this is probably all the same area, but taken at different distances.

EDITED - never mind - I see 2 instances in the first picture that moves it into WTF category....

Disregard this part below - I thought it was only 1 tile / area...

My thought is - if everything else is done well, it's probably not a hill to die on. I know YOU will see it every day, but no one else will fixate on it and they are unlikely to even notice it.

I had the same issue with a wonky slate tile that we put in our bedroom - when we laid it, I thought the bed would cover it so I didn't use some other tile in that spot. Every day I think I step on the awkward little cleft of that one freaking tile... but also have no one to blame but myself...
chispa
2 years ago
Even expensive mosaics are not "set it and forget it". Manual adjustments need to be made for it to look perfect ... the average tile guy won't bother and you end up with what you got.

I have never had a tile guy do any grout until the tile was set and dry, usually 48 hours later. Did they try to grout right after they laid then tile?
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Minardi
2 years ago
You started with extremely poor quality tile, and then hired unskilled tile labor to install it. Tile requires a specialist contractor, with much better quality tile. "A contractor" and the Lowes special, and that's totally predictable.