Re: Travertine and thermal shock

From: maison.mousse (maison.mousse_at_wanadoo.fr)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:26:26 +0100

altyfc a écrit dans le message <420c9807$1_2@127.0.0.1>...
>Hello
>
>I would be very grateful if anyone can help me with the following:
>
>About a year ago we moved into a new build. In the bathroom to the
>master bedroom, we had travertine floor tiles laid down on top of
>underfloor heating mats. Since then, the tiles have cracked (in
>straight lines) in multiple places. We strongly feel that the floor
>has not been prepared properly (indeed, on excavation, we discovered
>he has used 9mm ply instead of the recommended 16mm) yet the builder
>is adamant that we are partly to blame for having the underfloor
>heating on too high, saying that we have subjected the tiles to
>"thermal shock". Quite frankly, I think this is nonsense, but I
>would be grateful for a geological perspective on this.
>
>1. For travertine to be thermally shocked, or detrimentally affected
>by temperature in any way, what would the temperature need to get up
>to?
>
>2. If travertine were to be thermally shocked, how would this manifest
>itself in the tiles? Our tiles are cracked in straight lines (and
>those lines happen to co-incide with joins in the ply laid down
>beneath).
>
>Thanks very much for any pointers you can give...
>
I'm not sure what they mean by "thermal shock"! A problem may arise if one
part of the tile is heated and an other part is cool. It is more likely
however that the problem is that the under liner was not laid smooth and
that was the cause of the cracks. With these types of tiles the surface on
which they are laid must be very smooth. Even a small flaw "bump" under the
tile can cause it to crack when pressure is put on it. The fact that
the cracks are on line with the plywood seams makes it all most certain that
the unlevel seams would be at fault.
It would be a good idea to have another contractor who works with this type
of tile to look at it.

JOL

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Whats a good home improvement newsgroup?
    ... short I've bought and laid them right afterwards but not too happy with ... With carpet tiles you can just swap one or two out if it's really bad. ... Real tiles don't stain, only grout does. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Whats a good home improvement newsgroup?
    ... short I've bought and laid them right afterwards but not too happy with ... With carpet tiles you can just swap one or two out if it's really bad. ... You want to have some kind of pattern.. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Whats a good home improvement newsgroup?
    ... short I've bought and laid them right afterwards but not too happy with ... With carpet tiles you can just swap one or two out if it's really bad. ... You want to have some kind of pattern.. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Do I really have to grout between ceramic floor tiles?
    ... Ray wrote: ... The concern is that water will get into the spaces between the tiles and wet and weaken the adhesive below. ... They will be laid on a concrete slab that's in direct contact with the soil. ... but I would not want to remove tiles I had laid down because they started to come up or were so filled with dirt I could not stand them. ...
    (alt.home.repair)
  • Re: Tiling large bitmap, what size tile is best?
    ... I don't understand why you're saying "Larger tiles would be less ... Regarding cracks, the more tiles the more potential cracks there will ... able to align the texture to the screen such that there are no cracks. ... > be less memory efficient but faster. ...
    (microsoft.public.win32.programmer.directx.graphics)