I am a DIY homebuilder who recently hired a contractor to lay some natural slate tiles in a bathroom. This a a local material, somewhat irregular and varying in thickness. I hired him because I have never tiled before, knew this would be tougher than laying uniform tile, and I didn’t want to screw it up. I planned to be his ‘helper’ to keep costs down, and as it turns out I feel I ended up doing most of the work because he was moving so slow. The contractor put down Ditra membrane while I laid out the stone pattern and made the necessary cuts to fit the pieces together. Then he mortared everything down on his own. While we were working, I was getting a bad feeling that this guy was not the pro he claimed to be, and not worth the rate he charges ($55/hour, which is very high for our area).
The next day, I went to clean and seal the stones prior to grouting and immediately noticed how uneven the height was from piece to piece- some places as much as 1/2″ between stones. It was noticeable from several feet away and it felt like a trip hazard. I had my wife take a look at it and she also immediately spotted the worst fits. Furthermore, the ‘no brainer’ smaller stones that I thought should’ve been perfectly level were also off by 1/8″ – 1/4″ in many places…the more I inspected it, the more it looked like shoddy work to me. I was prepared for some variation in height due to the natural variability of the slate, but this seemed over the top! My thought was that several pieces would need to be pulled out and re-done. Since these are pretty large stones in a small room, it would mean re-working alot of the job.
I called the contractor and he told me that he ‘knew there where a few high points and he planned to chisel clefts off the high stones to bring them back in’. He added that ‘he must’ve forgot to mention it before he left the job’. And of course, he gave me the ‘have confidence, I’ve been doing this for 25 years routine.”
Again, I do not have experience with this type of work, but it seems like a bad approach to lay the stone uneven and then try to fix it later when he could’ve just put it down flat in the first place….Am I over-reacting? Is this standard practice?
I am weighing my options before contacting him with a game plan.
Attached are a couple photos. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
Replies
Here is the test for your stones, to see if your contractor is "full of" it, or whether instead you are "full of" unreasonable expectations.
Of course it is too late now, since they are stuck down, but consider the test concept anyhow.
Each and every stone must have a dead-flat top surface. Dead flat.
Take a good flat surface, lay each stone on it top-face down, and the stone must lay on there perfectly mated.
Perfectly mated. No rocking. Flat to flat. The way a brand-new playing card lays on a stone countertop or a polished wood gaming table.
If they were this way, there is no excuse for the lippage you got.
But if those stones had non-planar top surfaces, i.e., were not dead flat, no tile-setting magician can give you a flat, no-lip installation.
You make it sound like you've never seen a piece of cleft-face slate before. Of course it's not "dead flat", it's cleft-face. By telling the OP that his stone should be dead flat or all bets are off... you're steering him in the wrong direction. A skilled setter will be able to either (a) install material like that so that lippage is minimized, i.e. most pieces flush but some lippage up to maybe 1/8"... or (b) tell the owner that the material supplied cannot provide a quality installation and should not be used, at least not for the application shown in the pics.
To the OP, it sounds like you got a low-quality installation. If it feels like a trip hazard, it IS a trip hazard. The setter should probably have told you that your stone might be appropriate for a sand-set patio outdoors, but that it wasn't going to produce a pleasing installation on a small interior floor. Grinding or chiseling the faces is going to make it worse (mostly because it won't really improve anything and you'll still be spending $55/hour). I would either live with it like it is, or rip it out right now before the mortar cures fully and replace it with commercially manufactured floor tile or stone.
Of course I've seen cleftface slate. I'm just making a point with the OP, and that is that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Sounded and looked to me as if the DIY OP did all the selecting and fitting and cutting, and only relied upon the "pro" to set, and setting was done to the pre-ordained layout and pattern the OP set for him.
The "flat" exercise-in-thought was to stress how much "out of flat" can matter. And especially so, when your client has already selected the stones, and done the layout pattern.
I appreciate the comments so far, and will add a few of my thoughts.
First, we wanted to use this natural slate because it was a local product that 'fit' with the rustic aesthetic of the house. I was aware that many of the pieces were 'out of flat' and I did my best to cull them out. As noted in the original post, I knew this would be more difficult than manufactured tile and that is why I hired a pro for this part. We did not want the cold perfection of purchased tiles, and some lippage was expected, but not to this extent- as I said, it is literally a hazard.
As far as the material being acceptable for this application, the contractor had a chance to look at it when he took on the job. The original plan was for him to do all the cutting and fitting, I only stepped in because it was moving at a snails pace and I didn't want to spend thousands on a bathroom floor. He gave me every indication that we had plenty of good stone to work with here.
I spent some time with a level trying to make sense of what he did. Some of these stones have a crown or bow of maybe 1/8" - 1/4" tops. It was my expectation that an experienced installer should be able to set them and adjust for this variability at the edges. Looking at the finished product, I really feel that I could've done an acceptable job with this stone, despite my lack of experience.
I would like to know if anyone feels that chiseling away the highpoints is an appropriate procedure, as I'm just not on board with what this guy is saying and doing?
But the bottom line- If there is a 1/2" lip between stones, and this is the best that can reasonably be done (which I don't think is the case), then wouldn't an experienced contractor have a professional obligation to tell the homeowner and refuse the job?
Maybe your installer was less then professional but you supplied the material.
In fact you ended up specifying the lay out and made the cuts.
Your stone,
Your layout,
your cuts.
Your fault.
May not seem fair, but you did it not him.
People often want to use natural ungraded stone where it is in apropriate and
have this complaint.
And yes if your stones vary by a 1/4" if you put two together you can get a 1/2"
difference. The guy doing the layout has to plan accordingly.
another DIY here, but I've got a lot of tile setting experience and have laid natural stone outdoors on crushed rock or sand base.
I think you chose the wrong material for the site or you should have considered placing it on a fresh mud base. Even then it would be an uncomfortable choice for a bathroom with bare feet.
Check johnbridge.com for more answers and guidance.
You paid this guy for his professional experience and skills. If you feel you didn't get good value, then you probably didn't get good value. The chisel thing sounds like BS to me. And in my experience, people say "don't worry, I've been doing this for XX years" when the quality of the work doesn't speak for itself.
Any lippage over 1/4" IS a
Any lippage over 1/4" IS a tripping hazard.
I think you were sort of dumb in the first place to think the material would work, and the contractor was sort of dumb in not making it clear to you how the job would, under even the best of circumstances, turn out.
I'd tear it all out and chalk the loss up to education, valedictorian of the school of "how dumb was I?"
So, I got to thinking about your recap of the events and had a thought-
You say the guy has been in the business for 25 years and is at the top
of your local pay scale.
Then you mention he is taking too long in your opinion.
Could it be that he was dealing with your poor choice of materials ? It
takes considerable time to height match and profile match at the same time.
Considering you were looking to save every penny by being his helper and then
took over, it is very plausible you put him in the position of letting you mess it up or
lose the job.
Me?
I would have told you to take a hike or I would, but he probably needs the money,or
a guy making that kind of money wouldn't have even considered taking on a mess of a job like that.
Next time hire a professional (and let him do his job) or do it yourself, but never both.
Next time hire a professional (and let him do his job) or do it yourself, but never both.
Well said.
As a professional contractor, I couldn't agree more. I have yet to see a job where the homeowner contributed real cost savings to me by "helping".
Wow, I didn't think the finger would be pointed at me! Now I need to defend myself-
The contractor made it clear from the beginning that any work I did would speed up the process and save me money. As he started laying the Ditra on the first day, it was his suggestion that I could start laying out the pieces. I took on the cutting because he could barely make it up and down the flight of stairs to get outside, then would have a smoke, and be too out of breath to work when he finally got back...not a good scenario for productivity.
With all the pieces laid out, he estimated it would take a full day, with both of us working together, to make the cuts and transfer the pieces into the bathroom...I did it myself in 2 hours that night after he left (which he was okay with).
He set the pieces by himself.
Since there are several places where perfectly flat tiles are set at different heights, I don't see how this would be my fault. Even the larger stones with lippage could have been leveled to 'split the difference' and I think it would've been okay. In the worst spots, it appears that he set the adjacent stones with one ramping up and the other down- hence the 1/2" lip. Again, not my fault.
But my getting defensive isn't going to solve the problem.
When I expressed my concern with the contractor, he was quick to say that he had a plan to chisel the clefts and level out the irregularity- a plan he had before I brought up the problem...so I'd like to hear from you pros whether or not this is protocol?
Thanks!
You should be able to get the floor reasonably level, It's possible there was way to much variation on the size and thickness of the stones. Some of the time there will a pc that is a going to be a little thicke or thinner, adjust mud accordingly. My experience is there are not that many guys that are 'really' good. There are lots of guys that are barely good enough, just imagine how many half assed jobs a hack could do in 25 years.... It's tough to put the blame on him, it's tough to put it square on you, wait until you see the finished product, if it's crap it will be pretty evident. Sorry about your floor, worst case remove the stones that bug you replace with suitable.
I've got a few thoughts. First off it seems that you don't like this guy. So let him go. I don't think you've got any recourse for him doing it over, giving you a refund, or him saying he's sorry. Just let him go... he may have very likely been a poor choice. That would be your fault.
Can the slate be chipped? Well, why don't you find out? Take a couple of the scrapped pieces and stick them down to some plywood with the same thinset. Once a good cure has been reached try your hand at cleaving some off the top. See what happens. My guess is the "patina" of the fresh face is going to be substantially different and you won't like it even if it does make the surface smoother.
Next time, don't use white thinset on black slate. All the little goobers on the tile edges are going to show. And, in the second photo it looks like there's an unsupported edge. If so, you better pack in some thinset.
Is this a shower floor as well? The square cutouts make me think those are for shower drains. If so, did the Ditra get installed properly? Normally, Ditra is not waterproof. You should use Kerdi in a shower.
So are you saying we should pay him his full rate (he hasn't billed us yet)?
I had another contractor look at the project today and he confirmed that it was very poor work, and that the slate could have been set adequately flat without much difficulty. I really don't feel like I am to blame just because I was involved in placing/cutting the pieces.
As for the floor, there will be a clawfoot tub in the back, no shower. The wood squares are for placement of decorative wood pillars (which will also house the DWV stack).
I think I will try your suggestions, and possibly remove the worst of the stones and redo them myself this week.
>>I had another contractor
>>I had another contractor look at the project today and he confirmed that it was very poor work, and that the slate could have been set adequately flat without much difficulty.
Have you seen examples of his work with this product?
It's impossible to say from the pics, but based on them and your product description,it seems to me likely that significant lippage was inevitable.
Especially where you did the layout, rather than him.
Did you consider "out of flat" along all edges as you did the layout? Or just finding shapes to fit the room layout?
Once the "out of flat" exceeds 1/8" (or a bit more) on the pieces, doing a layout not only requires matching shape to the space, but matching "out of flat" along all edges of each piece.
!/4" + is spec'd in the engineering world as a tripping hazard. Get one piece with a section of the edge 1/8" below the nominal plane and match it with a piece that is 1/8" above the nominal plane at the aligned edge, and you've got 1/4" lippage.
When you layed them out dry originally, did there seem to be much variance? To me, it looks and sounds like a poor installation by the contractor. In your first photo, it appears there is a void under the high tile. A higher notched trowel could have helped if there was much variance. This stinks. Sorry for your trouble.
So, here's an update on my project. I let the contractor go after a brief 'discussion' about how good is 'good enough'.
I pulled up all the stones in the main traffic area and/or where the lippage was 1/4" or more. I did this after a week had passed, yet the mortar was still rather soft and crumbly. I dug the empty bags out of the garbage and it looks like he used modified thinset to lay the stones- as I understand it, this should have been done with unmodified, correct?
I looked on the Schluter site and they suggest long cure times before grouting if modified thinset is used...how do I know when it is ready for grouting?
I was ready to reset the stones I pulled up, but am now wondering if I need to pull everything up and start over.
Thoughts?
I don't see how the Ditra can perform as advertised if it's covered with the remnants of crumbly thinset. Don't you need a clean bond between the stone and the membrane? How well is it stuck to the floor?
Actually, most of the thinset came up with the slate and what remained on the Ditra I was able to pop off in chunks using a dull wood chisel. It remained stuck to the floor as far as I could tell. The Ditra was almost like new when I finiished. I pulled up about a third of the floor and re-set it all this morning- I was able to stay within 1/8" - 3/16" on all edges, and we are happy with that.
but I'm wondering if I should redo the rest of the floor.
I may be wrong because I don't have the thinset material in front of me now but I believe modified thinset is not to be used under the Ditra i.e. to bond it to the underlayment. Double check that info.
There's not much jealousy among these sites. Might I suggest posting at johnbridge.com.
BTW did you try walking on these stones yet with bare feet. I'll admit I've got baby butt soft feet but I think even calloused trotters will find your stone uncomfortable.
Good luck
I have the installation manual left behind by the contractor- it looks like what you use under the Ditra depends on the substrate. In my case, it is a plywood subfloor, so modified thinset under the Ditra was recommended. But over the Ditra, they say it should always be unmodified.
Haven't tried the barefoot test yet, but since the stones are pretty smooth I don't anticipate a problem. My main concern was keeping them as flat as possible.
Thanks for the comments.
I don't think this about the material at all.
If i was doing the floor and you stepped in to help because i was going at a snails pace I would walk off the job. Period.
Laying stone is hard enough without the homeowner pushing me.
And i don't blame you entirely.
A good contractor with exsperience should have let you know that the product would have some lippage and that he was doing the job.
Not you doing the job and him in a helper position.
Looking back, do you think you should have done the whole job?
That's what it sounds like to me.
And $50 an hour is cheap if he a fully liscenced and insured contractor.