Ceramic Tile Repair Alternative

Hello, we just purchased a new home (built in 2000) and have just been in for a few months when the weather has turned cooler. Suddenly, one of our tiles popped up in the hallway leading to a run of popping tiles down the hallway and into the kitchen/living area. Help! What is causing this and how can we get it to stop?!
The 15 inch tiles are cemented directly onto the concrete slab of the house. The concrete does not appear to be wet. Every few days, another few tiles loosen and pop up about an inch! We are concerned if we have to re-do the entire floor of our house. Please, do you have any suggestions for us? We have no idea why it is doing this and how we can get it to stop.
My husband just spent an entire day cleaning off the tile adhesive with a hammer and chisel and now another 8 tiles are loose. Already almost 30 tiles are loose down the hallway that leads into our open plan kitchen, dining room & lounge room all with tiles.
Any recommendations?

Desperate in 'new' house.

Merle & Cheree Shenk

We just completed construction on our house and put 20x20 porcelan tile in our Master Bath with a Nuheat mat under it. They used 1/2" concrete board and modified thinset under and over the mat. Two days after the tile was grouted, about 10-12 tiles(out of 168 sqft) started popping and the grout was coming out. This bath is over a basement. The contractor thinks it is because the floor trusses are 16"OC(sitting on 18" steel I beams reinforcing them). It also has a 3/4" Advantek floor that is glue, nailed and screwed. The rating on the trusses is 60 lb/sqft. But....we also have other areas(laundry room), with the same tile, that are not popping or coming up. I think it has something to do with the mat. Any ideas or thoughts on this problem

I have a similiar problem with tiles coming loose.I removed three tiles and broke one.Is there a way of injecting a bonding agent under thr rest of the tiles without removing them.

I am also curious about an answer for Michael's question.

I don't see an answer to the tile popping questions -- and boy do I need one! Tile are popping up all over our house. Is it because the wrong thinset was used? Should we replace these tiles with more tiles or just go to wood flooring. Would I have a similar problem with wood? Our tiles are 18" ceramic applied directly to the cement slab. The thinset has pulled off pretty completely from the tiles. We are in the wetlands, but there is no evidence of water or moisture on the slab.

Hoem is only five years old. We have installed speciality tiles in the kitcah areas, There wer two cracks along the entire width of the kichen goes through about 10 tiles each crack. We have replaced one time, but we end up with damaging and replacing more tiles. We have only few matching tiles left. I am not able to replace since we don't have enough matching tiles. The cracks are fine. Initially it was line hair line, But is getting wider as time passes. Is there any chemical liquids or something which filled the crack so it wouldn't get wider and hopeful match the color. I have beige color so little bit off wouldn't make big contrast. Plaese help and advise.

Thanks,

pravin Patel

I am in a new house also built in 2000. I have the same problem as Merle Shenk...Have been there for 8 years. The ceramic floor tiles have been in the kitchen for eight years to but has just started popping up and cracking all over. I am worried about this. Is this serious? should I contact the NHBC>
Any help will be appreciated.

thanks
Maureen

Hi, this evening we started hearing tiny cracking sounds, then louder ones in one area of our living room, against a wall. The cracks have been continuing moving from west to east across our tiled living room. The tiles are moving up, like an earthquake fault. I'm now typing uphill by about two inches as the floor tiles have raised up, lifted up my entire computer desk (that weighs at least 90 pounds) and one side is now suspended in air. A raised ridge is running through my living room and has grown rapidly from about two feet to an area of about 18 feet by 20 feet and increasing rapidly! Help.
I still do not see any solutions above and the area is cracking and getting bigger. I'm worried about the foundation.

I'll call my insurance company on Monday. Who else should I call? Help.

Michelle
Miami, Florida
I'll

We had the popping tile problem in our kitchen. After the Northridge Earthquake, much of the tile in the kitchen had to be replaced. I had a black expansion line built into the flooring. Since the grouting is black, the expansion row looks just like grout. The expansion row has a flexible silicone rather than grouting. That allows for expansion and contraction without popping the tiles. This was my own bright idea. My father always put in expansion joints in cement swimming pool decking to keep the decks from cracking. So we did it on the tile floor in the kitchen. That was in 1994. Just last year one tile cracked. I suspect this is from settling because we are on adobe. The house was built in the early 1960s.
You can try this. My line of silicone runs about ten feet long. It is impossible to see the difference between the grout line and the expansion line.
Good luck with your project.

I had my house built on a concrete slab in 2000. In Florida.
Over the past 2 years several of the 16 by 16 inch ceramic floor tiles (set in cement)have become loose. It does not show, but you can hear a hollow sound when you tap on them. Some of them rock slightly when you walk on them. My builder does not want to do anything about it, but he put me in contact with a store here in Sarasota, which sells products to repair these problems. You need to drill small holes on all 4 sides of the grout lines and then inject a special glue, which will bond the tile to the floor. They sell all the equipment and products necessary. They have excellent result.