Kitchen Nightmares

The Tale of the Tile:

After the frame of the kitchen add-on was completed we still needed to insulate, add electrical outlets and light fixtures, sheetrock, paint and tile the kitchen. We had several contractors come out and give us bids and finally decided on “D” who seemed like a good guy who would do a good job. We got a good deal financially because it was a side job for “D” so he only came to work on our house during the evening hours and on weekends, which we were fine with. “D” started and we were pleased with his work on the electrical things and well as his sheetrock/plastering.

All was going smoothly until about a week before Thanksgiving when “D” approached us saying he had regrettably taken on too much side work and with the holidays coming up would not be able to get everything done. “D” told us he had a friend, “T”, who did wonderful work with tile and would honor “D”’s bid for the tile work and asked it we would we be willing to let “T” do the tile work. We opted to meet with “T” to discuss the kitchen as well as a couple more tile projects in the house. (During the construction process we had decided it would be really nice to have tile not only in the kitchen, but down the hallway as well as in our ‘entryway’ and in both upstairs bathrooms.) After chatting with “T” and “D” and getting a bid for the hallway, entryway and bathrooms we agreed to let “T” do the tile. So, “T” came with a helper and started to work on our kitchen floor.

Again, everything seemed to be going smoothly until Saturday, December 6th when we got a call from “T” (Kent and I were out with Mom and Dad H. for a birthday dinner for Mom). “T” told us the tile in the kitchen was finished but he would not be coming back to finish the rest of the house. (“T” told us that his wife was upset with all the extra time he was spending away from home with side jobs.) Kent tried to talk to him on the phone but “T” just said he was leaving and was done with the kitchen and that we should call “D” if we had any problems. So Kent called “D” and “D” said he would talk to “T” and get back to us.

I am sure you can understand why we were a little upset because he opted to just leave in the middle of the job (if you take on too many side jobs, don’t take on any more but at least finish the ones you started) but still, I was excited to come home and see the floor in the kitchen covered in tile.

Even though “T” told us we could walk on the floor right away we opted to wait about 24 hours before stepping on it. Because of the leftover grout residue we needed to mop the floor several times to clean it all up. While mopping we noticed a few things about the tile and the grout. The grout was flaking up in about 1/3 of the kitchen. One of the tiles was at least 1/4 of an inch higher than the rest of the tile (it would have been hidden by fridge, but still!). The cuts near the sliding glass door were sloppy and some of them weren’t even filled in with grout! (I can understand not having nice cuts near the walls, baseboard is going to cover them up, however, near the sliding door there is nothing that will cover it so the cuts need to be more accurate. And it looked like they cut the tile too small so to compensate, instead of cutting another tile, they made the joints bigger on one side and put grout between the tile and sliding glass door on the other side.) We also noticed when we stepped down we heard a cracking sound and the tiles slightly shifted.

On Friday, December 12th, Kent was walking through the kitchen to the basement when he stepped down and the tile cracked in half. Less than a week after it was installed and the tile cracked in half!

Meanwhile, since we couldn’t get a hold of “T”, we decided to see what it would cost to have the tile issues repaired so started having tile contractors come out and give us bids. Coincidentally, we also learned a whole lot about tile and how it should have been put down and how it was improperly installed in our kitchen.

When installing tile you need to first lay down a layer of thinsulate, which is a thin layer of concrete. This thin layer evens out the floor so there are not hills or valleys under the tile that will cause air pockets and eventually lead to weak areas that will crack or break. (You can sometimes get away with not using thinsulate in new homes, but a home like ours, that is 30+ years old definitely needs it.) Next you lay down something called hardibacker. It comes in large sheets that lay down flat on the floor and provide a stable, water-resistant substrate and a strong surface to bond tile to. Hardibacker has little dots all over it as a guide to where you need to put screws or nails to ensure a flat and stable surface. Next you run glass fiber cement backerboard tape between the joints of the hardibacker sheets to make sure you have a flat surface every where. And then, and only then can you start actually laying the tile.

“T” did not put down a layer of thinsulate. “T” only put screws in the hardibacker around the edges and about 12 inches apart. “T” did not use tape between the edges of the hardibacker. All of these things led to the problems we had in our kitchen. Every contractor that came out said just because 2/3 of our kitchen seemed fine didn’t mean it was. It just meant that we weren’t having problems right away. And each of them said to make sure we didn’t get those problems in the rest of the kitchen we would need to rip up all of the tile and start completely over.

Yes, that’s right. Rip it all up and start completely over.

Continuing on with the story...

Kent finally got a phone call from “T” who was cheery and happy and asked when he could stop by to pick up his check. (At least through all of this we hadn’t paid “T” anything. We were just out the cost of the tile.) Kent explained the problems with our tile, that he had tried to get a hold of “T” and that we weren’t going to pay “T” anything until the problems had been fixed. “T” offered to meet at our house and discuss the issues and to see what he could do to fix them so we set up a meeting time and day.

Meanwhile, “D” showed up to finish his painting of the add-on and looked at the tile in the kitchen. Needless to say he was flabbergasted. “D” said he had seen work “T” had done before that was beautiful but this was no where near that level. “D” actually told us that even though “T” is his friend, he wouldn’t pay for the job that was done in our kitchen and said he would continue to try to talk to “T” for us.

The meeting day and time arrived and “T” showed up at our house and looked at the kitchen. “T” told us that he could just replace the broken tile and the grout and our kitchen would be fine. Kent tried to explain to him that that plan wasn’t acceptable because Kent had researched how to install tile and every contractor we had come to the house had told us the proper way to install tile and that our tile had been installed improperly. Kent explained to him that if “T” was willing to rip up all the tile and lay it down again properly, we would pay him his original bid price but that we would not agree to a patch job that was only going to let us limp along until the rest of the tile starting cracking and coming up. “T” got extremely upset and told us it was our fault the kitchen tile was having problems, yelled and called Kent names and then stormed out. Kent called him on the phone and tried to talk to him but all “T” did was continue to say it was our fault and that we would be sorry if we didn’t pay him the money.

Later that day Kent called “D” to see if he had any advice on how to handle “T”. “D” told us he would try to talk to “T”. We felt bad having “D” get in the middle of everything but we had no other options while trying to talk to “T” reasonably.

Finally, through many conversations with Kent, “T” agreed to walk away from the project (honestly, I didn’t want him touching anything in my house again) if we could prove to him that we were indeed going to rip up the entire floor and start over. (He thought we were just going to have someone come in and repair the grout and the tile that cracked and then we would save all the money we were supposed to pay “T”.) He said if he could have his hardibacker back after we ripped it up he would be satisfied and leave us alone. We agreed to that and told him we would let him know when it was available for him to pick up.

So, we finally decided on a new tile contractor, “R”, that was willing to start next Tuesday, December 23rd. As that day got closer though, I got more panicky. Everything from my kitchen is still in my living-room (fridge, table, dishwasher, moveable garbage thing) and it will be the week of Christmas (we never even got the Christmas tree up, let alone any other decorations in the house). I just didn’t want to have to deal with more construction while trying to have a nice Christmas and running around to all the parties that were planned. Kent, saint of a husband that he is, called “R” today and moved the starting (re-starting?) date to Monday, December 29th.

And they lived happily ever after.

Oh, wait...this isn’t exactly the end of the story, is it? So, I guess for now, we’ll just say...

To Be Continued...

*wink*