One other question...is it possible to take up the tiles alone and lay hardwood over top or would the whole layer of concrete need to be jack hammered out.

I'm sorry to say it is his fault since he should have prepped the floor correctly before he laid the first tile. The fact it was uneven to start with was a sign the floor wasn't supported correctly from underneath. Then, to make matters worse, he proceeds to add a tremendous amount of weight with excessive mortar and tile.
IMO, anything you try to do will accomplish nothing, and in the long run you'll have to tear it out. Please don't spend money trying to work around the problem.

Send me an email and I can give you the name of a site that can help. No........this is not some type of spam. It's just GW claims to have had problems with the site placing ads here so they don't allow links. The pros there can answer all your questions......and hopefully explain to your installer what he should have done.

That's a ridiculous amount of sagging for a 25-year old floor. The structural issues should have been addressed before the tiler threw a half-ton of material on top of it.

Pics of the framing might help pinpoint the problem. The tiler who did it is not the person to fix it.

Google up "Deflectolator" to get a take on necessary framing for tile support.

This post was edited by worthy on Sat, Aug 24, 13 at 1:44

Structural issues need to either be corrected (with appropriate modifications to the house's framing) or taken into account (by using an uncoupling membrane, for example) before any tile is set.

What made it even worse is the use of a large format tile. The larger the tile, the less ability the installation has to cope with any movement within the floor structure.

The movement or deflection problem itself may not be "the fault" of your installer. Your structural issues are "the fault" of the person who designed or built the house, or the person who failed to maintain the house. It all depends on why the house is moving.

But your tile installer is 100% at fault for failing to properly take into consideration the structural issues when he tiled the floor. He may not have known what the problem was, but by the house being off-kilter, he knew there was a problem. And he failed to properly address it.

His methods were wrong.

His materials were wrong.

To move forward, you need to have the problem properly diagnosed. You need to find out why your house settled, and if whole-house movement is still occurring.

There is a chance the house has stabilized, but your tiler's method created too much dead load on the floor platform itself. Example, the house itself may be stabilized and not settling anymore, but the tiler simply overloaded the joists with his mud installation and the joists can't handle the additional load. So only the joists and the floor are flexing/moving but not the house as a whole.

Thanks to everyone for your input. Now I guess the next step is to diagnose the issue properly and come up with possible solutions. We're lining up reputable contractors to get some opions. Someone suggested that we move but I can't imagine the cost of doing this all over again. Besides, we'd never be able to sell the house down the road without fixing it properly.

The cabinet guy did an outstanding job so if we have to fix this, it's better to do it now while he's around to repair any potential dings to the work he did. The whole thing is just extemely disappointing and upsetting.

Once we find out the next steps, I'll post again.

Google for the John Bridge Forum. That is what everyone else above is referring too. They have some great pros who are nice and knowledgeable. (I have no affiliation with this group other than to have hired one of the guys who post their regularly - he is VERY good.) Good luck.

elphaba,
I'm surprised you were able to spell out the JB name. I have tried before and got the 'warning message'. Maybe they've eased up on that, but GW still doesn't allow the link.
I sent the OP the info via email.

The real reason GW does not allow reference to the JB forum is they are afraid of losing traffic to a competitor. Once users find contractor-quality information available on discussion, they will start to find other "contractor talk" forums for their building questions. GW would lose members and have less traffic. Google keyword searches link to GW with higher results ratings than any other forum of this kind. Most new users stumble upon GW by this method. If there were consistent references to other forums allowed on GW, new users would start there, rather than sign up and post a question to GW.

It's simple advertising strategy. Block out reference to your competitor, especially if your competitor has a superior product.

I'm surprised too, because I tried to spell it out above, but it wouldn't let me. Glad someone was able to.

I do hope the OP responds back with a picture or what they think happened.

Just thought I'd give everyone an update. We had a contractor in who said the problem is deflection in the floor. The house was built in an era where there were no ceramic floors and granite countertops. The kitchen is 16 ft wide by 20 ft long and the joists can't handle the weight and need extra support. The periodic loud cracks we're hearing are the floor sagging slightly. He agreed with one of the posters here who said 20 x 20 tile has no give which is why they're coming loose. The contractor said it would cost us an absolute fortune to do a full tear out.

He said he'd be happy to take our money but suggested we try a way less expensive option first and build an extra support wall in the basement which we had done yesterday. It's rock solid and frames the furnace area and runs right down the centre of the kitchen underneath the heaviest section. The tiler is going to come back and replace the tiles that have popped or sound crunchy. He's going to give us the labour for free.

Not sure if this is going to help the issue, but paying $500 for materials is the best we can do for now.

Newby, I wish you luck, because the new support wall is just more guess work. Almost any house built to code in the last fifty or seventy-five years has floor framing strong enough to support granite tops and tile floors, and the few that don't would be immediately obvious to a competent installer. Think about it - a birthday party, a family get-together - ten or fifteen people weigh more than a tile floor.

just more guess work

Right!

Especially since the OP never wrote what the framing was in the first place. BTW, a support wall on a basement floor is not necessarily much help if the concrete is thin and weak.

Did the contractor jack up the sagging floor at all, or just provide support for the sag as is?

Of course, since no one here has "contractor quality information" we couldn't be of much help.

He jacked up the wall and then built the frame. We can't fix what's already happened and the purpose is to hopefully stop the problem from getting worse. The sag isn't obvious but even a quarter inch could be the reason we've been hesring the cracking noises.

This is a bandaid solution at this point but it will have to do for now. In a few years, if the whole thing needs to be rips out then we'll be in a better financial position to do it.