Is it possible to replace a bad tile, and the new ones will be perfectly same height with the existing ones?

Question

My brother's house got one fixed, its a little higher, hardly noticeable, but enough to stop a pail when you slide it across the floor. My hired guy screwed up 2 tiles, he fixed them, made them worse, and screwed up 2 more adjacent ones. And he's 30 yrs experience (but his main thing is not flooring, its electric and plumbing. So I plan to do it myself instead of risking another tile pro. Should I go for it and what could be potential problems I could bump into? What made them pro fail to get the tiles perfectly flat with the planes? Thanks very much.

Answer 1

The previous comments are good. But since you're planning to do the work yourself, here's a step-by-step showing how to remove a floor tile and replace it:

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/i...

Answer 2

30 yrs experience has nothing to do with tile/flooring when he's a plumber/electrician.  you can pull up any and all tiles that aren't the same height and replace them to be at the proper height.  consider hiring an actual tile installer instead of a plumber and you might not have this problem in the future.  if you instist on doing this yourself, buy/rent a 4" angle grinder, cut a line in the grout around the tiles you want to replace, as well as an X in the tiles you want to pull up ( cut a line diagonally across the tiles in an X shape so that you have a space to chisel up the tiles without ruining the tiles around them).  chisel up the tiles.  try not to mess up those around them.  scrape up any thinset that is in the square where the tile(s) used to be.  thinset and fill in the squares with new tiles, making sure that they are at the height that matches the surroundind tiles and that you are happy with the results (lightly feel the corners of the new tile against the old with your fingers/hand.  use no pressure, don't press down or use force.  just lightly feel how the are against each other.)  let sit for 24 hours then grout.  done.  good luck.

Answer 3

Sure, it's possible, have done it many times.  Hard to say why it did not work before, the replacement tile could have been the wrong thickness, or just used too much mortar when setting it.  Just clean up the area well, getting up all the grout and mortar before putting in the new tile.  Take a piece of the old tile if you are purchasing the replacement to match the height.

Answer 4

Hi, I'm Nick the Tile Man

In my web site, I address repairing tiles.  The information is free.  My phone number is on my web site.

Answer 5

The thirty year pro should stay in his main field. The tiles with a little care will be easy to get to the exact same height when they are installed. The cracked tiles are not hard to remove with a screwdriver, hammer,  scraper, and lots of calm patience. The old mastic should be scraped down to the substrata and then I usually dry fit the tiles to roughly see how much adhesive I need to apply to the tiles to get to the height requirement. In this case you will have to over apply the adhesive and tamp down the tile while checking the height with a straight edge to match across to old tile. The adhesive between the joints may have to be scraped out with a screwdriver to allow space for the grout. If by chance you get a tile a little low just take the tile out and put some more adhesive on to start the leveling process again. I usually do this with disposable latex gloves on and use maybe a dozen pair to keep clean and be able to wipe up and discard any overage of adhesive. I will also have a damp towel handy to deal with any adhesive that gets on the old tiles before it dries. Hope this helps.