Here is a picture with Low Grout

as you said, your tiles are 8x48.......

May I ask what tile that is?
I would not think that amount of lip is acceptable.mIt will be a hazard, especially to the bare footed. The tile itself looks great, though.

The amount of lippage you describe is not acceptable, nor is low grout. The photos don't show clearly, imo. Try some closeups with a quarter, getting down low to see the degree. Maybe slip something into the grout joint to show depth where it is low. The only tiling professional with a lot of technical knowledge and advice on resolution that I've seen around of recent is mongoct. I think he is usually on the bath forum. I'd try posting there to see if he is around. He has a lot of good advice he shares at length.

Answer to kitchendetective. The tile is a new product from Eleganza Natura Wood. http://www.eleganzatiles.com/product-series/porcelain/nature-series.html
I used Nature Wood - Miele 8x48

Thanks for snookums2 suggestion. Here is a close up view. I placed a quarter , penny and rice as references. Hope it is helpful.

The subfloor was prepared with no any special treatment. Glue sealed large cracks. The rest, just smoothed out the concrete.

On top of those two problems, I found out that 25 tiles make hallow sounds when finger tapped. I could feel vibration from the tiles when tapping. The installer said they are caused by holes in mortar and is normal and will not cause tiles to crack. After talking to him, he is going to replace about 8 really bad loose tiles, but leave the rest of 17 tiles as it is because he thinks acceptable.

{{!gwi}}

Here is the close up pic

Gorgeous tiles!
I would post your questions and photos on the John Bridge forum. They are tile professionals that are extremely helpful and generous with their time. They steered me in the right direction when I had concerns with my installer. The hollow sounds would concern me the most.

Wait. Where's the grout? Low grout? What's that supposed to be? What about all the detritus of living that falls in those spaces?

Take those pictures looking down the joint line so we can see the edge of the tile and the edge of the coin next to each other, to show height.

Hollows are not good. It can crack or if something drops there is no support and it can break.

Sorry but your tile man was not experienced enough for this application. He is trying to save himself but you may be in for trouble down the road, regardless of how it looks on the surface.

Those raised edges are also subject to chipping. There is a maximum allowance.

What is the joint width?

Hollowing sounding tile are not good at all. That means they aren't sticking to the substrate.

I think it is very difficult to lay tiles like you chose. 6 x 48" means that the substrate needs to be pretty darn perfect. The tile has such a long span to cover that any low spot in the floor that is not filled in property will cause lippage and hollow spots. Also manufacturers are very strict about how these tiles can be laid and they usually have a diagram in the instructions. I hope your installer followed the guidelines.

Are you sure those tiles were absolutely flat before installation? That first photo sure looks like the tile is bowed. It looks level at the joint on the left but not in the middle where the penny and red thing are. The shadow is much longer there.

Here is a pic looking down. The lippage is less than quarter thickness. About penny thickness. There are about 15 of those in 600 sqt area.
Answer to linelle : The grout lines are already starting to collect dirt.

Answer to snookums2: grout lines are 3/32", no spacer used. Eye-balled. This is the first job the installer handled such large rectified tile.

Answer to rmtdoug: The tiles are top quality. I did not inspect each tile, and does not know if there are bowed tiles.

I have 6"x36" tile planks and have no issues with lippage (at least to my untrained eye). However mine were installed over a wood subfloor with a basement below, so I believe they leveled the floor with cement board or a similar product. But I can see the varying heights of the tiles in your first picture and mine definitely do not look like that.

This post was edited by PurpleEyes on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 17:24

I do not understand "eyeballing" spacing especially with 48 inch long tile pieces.

I read, probably on GW, that sharp edges hurting feet could be an issue for rectified tiles especially if the tiles were not flat after I ordered my bathroom tile. I have 10x24 inch rectified tile being installed as I type; I am a nervous wreak even though I shared my concerns with the installer. I sure hope he checked the levelness of my tiles.

While at the tile store last month, the owner had to miss an appointment because he was on-site due to an emergency call from an irate customer and a tile-setter. Over 40-50% of a new, long wood-look tile order was not useable because of bowing. Since I am now considering wood-look tile in my kitchen remodel, I wish I had paid attention to the name of the tile his salesmen mentioned.

Put something with a straight edge on the length of the tile. That will tell you if it is bowed or flat.

Google "tile lippage, quarter" to see the type of photo I mean. I can't link the examples because GW considers it spam from JB forum.

The initial pictures show the tiles themselves are not flat as rmtdoug mentioned.

It is virtually impossible for a fired product to be completely flat without surface grinding and polishing.

Rectified means the edges are ground true and that does nothing for the flatness.

That type of tile even though it may be high quality, must have a grout joint to hide the un-eveness of the surface or you have to be able to live with a certain amount of lippage.

The hollow sounding tile will be a problem in the future.

Did the tile installer have string level lines set up in several directions?

Quote:
"This is the first job the installer handled such large rectified tile."

At least he was honest about his experience, but it was too big a job to use as his guinea pig.

Answer to rmtdoug: I measured with a 4' long leveler. The tiles seem to be straight and flat. It seemed to me a small amount bump, or mortar on slab could make the tile to bow, even the tile itself is flat. The installer did popped about 20 tiles to correct serious lippage when the mortar was still wet to handle. He put the popped tiles back. Those reset tiles came out ok. No lippage. So I think the lippage problem is really not caused by tile itself. More due to installation. What you are seeing now are the tiles that he did not pop. He said those were not bad and grout would correct those small lippage. Now the grout is set low and the remaining lippage did not go away. Now mortar and grout are all dried. Any fix would require scraping the existing tiles and replacing with new ones. I think it is going to be a lot more costly than before when mortar were still wet. I think the installer is going to avoid fix and pressure me to accept the work.

Answer to chispa : The installer did not use string, but he used a 10 feet long 1x4 metal board as guide. All grout lines are perfectly straight. The problem are grout too low and flatness and lippage.

To kevdp4: I really think a higher grout or a flushed grout will even out lippage better. Unfortunately no the case here. The concrete surface was prepared very quickly. No special material or labor. He just sealed a big slab crack.

I would appreciate any suggestion to fix those problems. Regrout to flush? If do that, does the existing grout need to be removed first before regrout? it is easy to attempt to just apply a second layer of grout to touch-up the low grout.

I have registered on John Bridge Tile forum, hoping to post there as some people suggested me to do. Waiting for admin to give me permission to post on that site.

Thank you very much for all of your help here.

monkeyta123

My tile installer told me that the first thing he had to do with what will be my tiled floor in a bathroom was decouple the tiling surface from the slab; he will not just mortar over concrete and install tile.

I hope you get answers from the John Bridge site; the issue of tiling directly to a concrete slab may also be worth asking about.

If you are not sure, find a certified tile inspector (google) in your state and pay him to inspect the tile and give you a report. I suspect that the inspector will find issues. Take the report to the contractor and insist that he fix the issues. If the contractor doesn't repair, then file a complaint with your state contractor licensing agency (the Registry of Contractors in our state) who can force the contractor to fix it or suspend his license (and then you can also file a claim with the state agency to get money to repair). You can also file a dispute with your credit card company if you paid by credit card. I just went through the process in my state after a contractor installed a large format wood look tile. It cost me $300 for the first inspection report and then $300 for the inspector to come back out when the agency representative came to the house. There were other issues such as appliances not fitting so that they were removeable. The agency agreed with the certified tile inspector and the contractor ended up removing all the tile (although my concrete is now pretty beat up from being jackhammered to get the tile out) ... but it was still better than living with a terrible tile job. The credit card company had also given me a full refund on my credit card so I was in a pretty good position (if he had fixed my floor somehow, then I could have deducted my costs anyway). You just need to do a good job on your write-up and make sure you have expert opinion (which is why you get a tile inspector). I was lucky enough to accidently call the most respected inspector in the state. If you tell the contractor tactfully that you are going to go through this process before you do it, then maybe he will just fix the issues and save you both time, grief, and money. By the way, the state agency representative that came out took out a credit card and any areas that had more lippage than a credit card were found to be faulty.

To snookums2 : I searched internet and at John Bridge site regarding lippage. I did not find any standard established for large format tiles yet. For 6x6 to 12x12, acceptable limit is 0.031" about the thickness of a credit card. My is from 0.035 to 0.05", about the thickness of a penny, but less than a quarter. So If the lippage is a quarter, it is no-brainer. Not acceptable. Not sure about a penny. According to aperson1961, it looks like credit card is the way to go.

Now I am concerned about the sunken grout lines. Removing existing grout and regrout can fix, but will be a very expensive and time and labor intensive process. From estimate, regrouting 200 sqt for $2200 for the labor and material. The current installer is likely to dispute.

To aperson1961: It is terrific to read your post about hiring certified tile inspector. I will starting locating one. By the way, I Iive in California.

Monkeyta

There is a formula, using the specific tile itself, to determine an acceptable lippage tolerance and necessary joint width to minimize it.