Cracked Tile!?

Question

We laid tile in our Master bath about a month and a half ago. Now we have 2 tiles that are crackd. I would like to no what caused it. We have a slab foundation.

Answer 1

The foundation may have cracked/shifted

The tile was defective.

Somebody dropped something heavy on the tile.

There wasn't sufficient grout under those tiles - they flexed.

One way to find out - pop-them out and look.

Answer 2

It depends on what you used as the adhesive.  You may not have enough thinset/tile adhesive under the cracked tiles OR the slab floor was not leveled properly.  You will have to remove those 2 tiles and scrape the adhesive off the floor and check for level. Once that is done you can re-apply thinset adhesive as that is the best for flooring applications, and re-set the tiles in the new thinset and tap them down a little bit so they are level with the tiles around them.

Answer 3

the slab may have cracked under the tiles

the proper coverage of thinset may not have been used under the tiles

too little of a thinset notch or using too stiff of a thinset may have contributed

to fix the two tiles, use a grout scraper (available at a hardware store) and scrape the grout out around the offending tiles, use a hammer and chisel, or screwdriver and pop out the cracked tiles, scrape the thinset off the concrete slab, if any, and set two uncracked tiles in their place.  make sure when you make up your thinset that you make it up a nice consistency between runny and stiff.  it should be thick and sticky like peanut butter.  grout the tiles.