Spotting Bad Tile Jobs
Tile can be expensive to replace. You might find somewhere to get tile on the cheap, but the biggest cost is labor. While I do love the DIY option, there are some DIYer’s and contractors out there that do bad jobs. I’ve got a list here of a few different red flags that will tell you when your contractor or the DIYer doesn’t know what they’re doing when it comes to tile jobs.
Poor Bonding
Sometimes problems are obvious, such as loose tiles in a high traffic area like a doorway. While one loose tile is no big deal, what is a big deal is the lack of coverage with mortar. You can clearly see the ridges in the mortar are small and chaotically troweled around. Professional tilers would use larger trowel sizes for this job, such as a 1/2″x1/2″ notched trowel. The ridges should be troweled in one direction (typically in the direction of the shorter dimension of the tile) and the ridges collapsed by pressing and moving the tile around into place.
While one loose tile is no big deal, evidence of how they were installed makes me assume the rest of the flooring will eventually follow suit. Let’s take a look at some DIY bathroom tile. There’s a number of issues in the image below.
Poor Planning
This was in my own bathroom which I remodeled. Whoever did this job didn’t cut the door casing and tile under it. This is a very common shortcut DIYers and even some contractors do. The result is a large grout joint around the door casing. Sometimes you can get away with this if the grout matches the tile or trim, but in this case it stands out like a sore thumb. Additionally, the subway tile is cut unevenly and then a row running perpendicular to the rest of the field tile is present. I can only imagine this was due to inexperience and a desire to get it done now rather than right.
I imagine the contractor thinking “looks good from my house”.
Lippage
Good tile jobs have little to no lippage. Lippage means that the tiles aren’t all in plane with each other. Some part of a tile is sticking out or sunk in. You can’t always see lippage, but you can definitely feel it. You can see in the picture above the third tile back is not laying flat. When installing small format tile such as a mosaic, you’ll want to press the tiles in with something like a grout float to keep the surface flat. It’s a good idea to check for lippage with a straight edge. For Larger tiles, leveling systems are out there which are good for handling lippage. These leveling systems usually have a clip and wedge. They’re great for large format tiles, but can be overkill for small to medium tiles. A tile job with a lot of lippage is a good indicator your contractor is inexperienced or doesn’t care.
Uneven Grout Lines
Another thing to look out for are uneven grout lines. This is usually avoided by using tile spacers and paying attention to it. It’s not super obvious until you stare at it and wonder why things look wonky. Some of the grout lines here look to be less than 1/16″ while others are more than twice that. I’ve done a number of tile jobs and sometimes things can get out of whack. I think it boils down to experience and attention to detail.
Poor Workmanship
It might be back in the corner behind the toilet, where no one will look. That’s no excuse to install tile that’s cut short. This is a sure sign your contractor is doing things on the cheap or doesn’t care.
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