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Paid $800 for a kitchen floor tile job that cracked in 3 months
I hired a contractor off Craigslist to redo my kitchen floor in Austin. He said he'd use Schluter underlayment but I caught him skipping it on day two. Now I've got three cracked tiles right in the middle of the room and he won't answer my calls. Anyone else deal with a hack tiler skipping the prep work?
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cooper.viola1mo ago
Man that's rough, I had a buddy in San Antonio who paid some guy to lay down flagstone in his backyard and the dude used regular ol' mortar mix instead of the flexible stuff for outdoor tiles. Whole thing looked like a checkerboard of broken teeth three weeks later when the ground shifted a little. He tried calling the guy for a month and finally just gave up and ripped it all out himself. Schluter underlayment is that orange stuff right? I've seen it at Home Depot but never used it myself. Anyway, your kitchen floor is toast and the only fix is probably pulling those tiles up and starting over.
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maxb461mo ago
Yeah that flagstone story hits close to home. I watched a guy in my neighborhood try to do a similar patio job with just regular thinset and within a year half the stones were popping up like loose teeth. The ground shifts even a little bit in Texas and that rigid stuff just snaps. That orange Schluter membrane is exactly what you're thinking of, it's basically a decoupling layer that lets the tile float a little separate from the subfloor movement. I've seen guys swear by it for kitchens with radiant heat or old concrete slabs that like to crack. Your buddy probably should have dug down a bit deeper and put a gravel base with some sand before even thinking about mortar. The whole ripping out part sucks but honestly once those tiles start breaking from the middle there's no saving them.
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