I Floated This Shower and IT FAILED!!-- Find out WHY

Hello, I'm Isaac Ostrow. I am a licensed tile contractor in Northern California. I've been licensed since 2003, so I've seen quite a few things in my time at

this

shower

we did in March 2017, about two and a half years. We recently did

this

shower

and have had a couple of problems since then. We're really trying to figure out what's going on. The first problem we had was we had some discoloration on the bottom row of tiles, the tiles that were getting wet and I'll show you some pictures from the original email and then we also had cracks on the curve and what I'll do is read the chain of emails so they can get a timeline of what happened, again original. installation in March 2017, the first call was about a crack in the sidewalk, so I think it was about three months after that, maybe summer of 2017, we only had two or three cracked tiles on the top of the curve so the first thing we did was I just sent my installer out and he just replaced the top three tiles and put them back.

We hoped it would be like that, but it wasn't like that. There was an underlying issue and here is the following email, it's from October 2017 and it says Hi Isaac. I hope you're doing well. We are having more problems with the shower that was pre-installed in our master bathroom earlier this year. The steep sidewalk has cracked once again on several counts. The crack appears to have started further down the sidewalk. In addition to the area that was previously repaired this summer, in addition to the crack that occurred last weekend, several slabs along the base of all three walls have become discolored.

The following link is an online discussion I found from other people who have experienced the same problem. to several images to show the damaged areas, please contact me as soon as possible so we can discuss these issues and figure out how to move forward so these are not the emails you would like to open. See this, but we always guarantee our work. I will never dodge a customer, we will take care of the problem, so the first thing I did was call the manufacturer of the title, which was Roca, a tile manufacturer that makes many different ceramics.

There they have a ceramic factory in Spain. It's just a white soup. glazed ceramic tiles, so I'll read you my answer, you know, November first. Hi Joe, the tile company says they haven't heard of this issue before and they are only willing to cover the materials we purchased from them, not the labor, but like I said, we were repaired at our expense. I haven't seen this happen on any other work we've done either. We have used this particular tile many times in showers. There appears to be moisture behind the tile, which is causing the discoloration where the wall connects to the floor, the ceramic, the body of the tile, not the glaze, may have a capillary absorbent action that can awaken moisture from the floor. in the traditional pant system we used, so the original was a traditional 40 mil PVC coating and the We used the traditional paint system, the membrane is under the floor and the mortars were allowed to get wet during the repair, so this is what I propose.

I suggest using a different bonded waterproofing system where the membrane is directly under the slab so there is no moisture. that can build up and wake up the wall and cause discoloration, to do this we will need to remove the bottom 12 inches of the wall tile, all of the waterproofing membrane from the shower floor and the curb, we will use a buddy, we will use a raincoat. curb as well, as I believe what is causing the curb to crack is the expansion and contraction of the two by fours that make up the curve, so on the first install, the original install, we used pressure treated 2x4s on the bottom.

They are on the slab foundation and two regular Douglas fir two-by-fours on top of that, so the old curved three-two-by-four that has been done in our area for many years, many showers were built from this way and now I don't do it. Because of this, I have only had this problem one other time in 15 years of installing tile showers, but we determined that was the problem and after replacing it with the other curve there are no more problems. I really apologize for the inconvenience. what this is causing as it will be a 2 or 3 day repair we will do our best to get in and out quickly and control dust etc.

Please let me know if there are any days that work better for you in the month of December and I . will make sure to plan what's best for your schedule in the meantime you can continue to use your showers as normal, so that's the email chain of events that led to the second repair, so now the sidewalk looks good, the tray is look great, you can see we have Here is a tray to shoot, so in the original repair we removed the three rows of wall tiles on all sides, we removed the old traditional 40 mil PVC coating, these walls are floating, we came back to replace the tray and curb.

I opted for the Kirti curb. I built it out of cardboard with a cement board on top that holds up well. Now everything in the pan looks great. We don't have any discoloration on the tiles that are getting wet now, but what we are getting is a crack that goes from here and it's very hard to see that we have a crack that goes from here to this tile and you can't really see it, it barely comes out, but if you look closely you can see the surface of the mosaic. it's cracked and this crack is all the way through, so we've got cracks here, we've also got cracks in the corner, we've got a cracked tile that's cracking in this L cut, we've got some cracks going up the wall here and you can see that. this is starting to separate on the wall here so this is a floating wall this is the method I prefer and it's really alarming to me to see failures because it's like one of the most bulletproof installations you can do and the only one .

What I can think is that we didn't do what TCA recommends, which is what 95% of the installers I know do, they just grunt at plane changes, we've always done it that way, we never had problems with our floating showers . but I think we had a lot of expansion and contraction. This is an exterior wall, so I think we have forces expanding and contracting the wood frame on the inside or the walls moving separately causing stresses and cracks, so let's dive in. On this and I'm going to see if I can figure out what's going on, so with this one, the crack is right here, you can barely see it, but when I address it, I see the crack appear somehow, you can see it's the crack transfers. . from the mortar bed to the thinset, so we actually have cracks behind it and a crack in a flow is quite normal.

You'll see a lot of times when we float you'll see little hairline cracks and it's all reinforced with wire so it's usually never a problem it's not getting my mortar bed out of here and it looks like tar paper uh so this is important, This is something I have also changed in the last year since I have been floating showers. Again, I don't use tar paper, our aqwal, our paper behind the wire because I want the flow to stick to the wall. What happens when you put paper? Provides a separation. You can see that the mortar has come away cleanly from that paper. let me see if I can this is what we call paper aqua bar and everyone in our area sets it up like this and I've been telling them for a while so the old way of doing it before I would probably say the way we float probably.

Before 1995, maybe the early 2000s, we never used Aqua Bar paper behind our float, we would say it's a book or laugh. I mean, all the critical areas were waterproofed with a top mop or pan liner, but once you get up here, you never need to worry about the waterproofing and you can see all of this and even when we remove it it will be completely dry, the water won't it usually passes the height of the curve, this is the only area, that's why TC na says you must have water proof. three inches above the curve because up here you don't understand that no you don't get water it spills and it's going to be completely dry like that so here's Aqua Bar paper we've got drywall right behind it and yeah.

That's our document, so I'm not saying that's what caused it, but I'm pretty sure and I've had a feeling for a long time that this would be a problem and you can see we have a crack that transferred to everyone. I think once the forces start to take their toll on a wall, if the mortar is not attached to the wall throughout the system, that will be the weak point and it will give way one way or another, so you know everything I would say . all my installations especially since the dense shield came out because that's the nice thing about the shield is that it already has a waterproofing layer on it so when we float our mortar over it we don't need paper because it's already waterproofed and I get that question.

Alright, where's your waterproofing? You put water, good, debt. Waterproof shields. We are going over with a bed of mortar and it is solid. I feel really good about it, so I essentially started using that, which again has been maybe a year and a half. We didn't put paper behind our cable because I had a sneaking suspicion and to be honest I heard other stories about this happening and it never happened when they never wanted them to not put paper so if I am an installer especially in my area in northern California, and you install a lot of ceramics.

I'm sure you've come across this before, so let's go ahead and fix it again. This is something I'm doing. I have been doing it for free, this is my third repair, I have not charged them a single cent to come do the repairs, this is on me, this is not something a manufacturer did or anything, we are the ones who put the paper. behind the wall so I'm responsible for it we're the ones that put up a wooden curb that's why I replaced it so when you're in business you know I've had my own business since 2002 and I've been licensed since 2003.

I'm going to get the callbacks, I mean, once I hear a lot of people make comments like I've never gotten a call, well you've probably never been in business that long, maybe people don't have your phone number anymore , maybe the people. They are a little afraid of him and don't want the confrontation of calling him back. There are many reasons why you wouldn't get a call about something like this, maybe the owner moved out and there's no record of who did the installation, so just because they've never gotten a call doesn't mean they haven't had problems. .

I'm using my experience, my trials, my adversities to not only help you, but I feel like it keeps me humble in some way. my business character we stand by what we say we stand by our work so this doesn't always have to be seen as a bad thing you know I'm losing money on this but overall this will strengthen my company It's going to strengthen my reputation and we're going to take responsibility for it, which we're going to fix it, so I have that saying that an old contractor friend used to tell me: Isaac, some days you make money, other days you make friends. and so today or making friends, I hope you get something out of this, leave your comments in the section below, especially if you have had to deal with cracks in ceramic subway tiles, if you have had cracks in a wooden curb, if you have had discoloration. since the tile body gets wet please leave your comments in the section below because my hope is that we build this community of knowledge that we share with each other, we help each other so we can all get better so thank you for watching and I.

I love you I love being your tile trainer, see you in the next video.