What Causes Floor Tile to Pop Up?

There are different reasons why your tiles may pop up. However, all those reasons can be classified into several groups. The issue may be in the following:

• The tile itself (size or quality)
• The prep work for the tiling (cleaning, drying)
• Adhesives and bonding material
• Tiling work

Some of these reasons are apparent right away, when the tiling is done, while the others can show their face after years of using your tiles, during which they were completely flat.

The tiling needs to be done by a professional to avoid such issues. Some tilers even offer guarantees for their work. If you are worried about the cost of tiling, don’t be.

Ask for several quotes at Service Seeking and hire a tiler only after you agree on the price that fits your budget.

What Causes Floor Tiles to Lift Up?

It is time to get into reasons why tiles lift up in more detail. Here are the most common ones:

Issues due to Tile Properties

In some cases, the tiles tent because there is something wrong with the tiles themselves. It can be their size or their material or simply the fact that they are too old. Here are some of the most common reasons why this happens:

• Tile absorbed too much water. The most of the tiles are sealed and the most of them don’t absorb too much water. However, some materials are more porous than others and some of them have micropores through which moisture can get into a tile. This is especially the case if the tile is cracked. Then the outer layer is not protecting it well enough. So, if the moisture is absorbed, the tile swells, expands and the pressure is created. As a result, the tile pops.
• The tile is too large. The fashion of the interior design takes the tiling work into consideration when creating new tiles, but their primary goal is esthetic appearance. That is why there are lot of large and oversized tiles that tilers don’t really like. These tiles easily tent. They need gentle taps by rubber or wooden hammers during the tiling work, so they stick with the adhesives throughout their surface.
  
  

  Image source: johnbridge.com

• The tiles are too old. Old tiles are not as flexible as the fresh, new ones. They crack more easily and their protective coating wears off. This can happen for many reasons. Foot traffic, cleaning agents, fluctuating temperatures and many more. In time, they simply cannot sustain the constant shrinking and expanding and they pop up.

Issues due to Improper Preparation for Tiling

Ask any experienced tiler and they will tell you that the preparation for the tiling work is just as important as the tiling itself. If the prep work is not well done, all the tiling work will be ruined sooner or later. Here are some of the reasons how improper prep work causes tiles to buckle.

• Subfloor is uneven. Before laying the tiles and doing any of the tiling work, it is important to have a good subfloor. It is essential that it is flat and even. The issue arises when you apply the adhesives which should connect the tile and the subfloor.
  If the floor is not even, different tiles will get different amount of adhesive and the proximity to the subfloor. That means some of them will be better and some of them will be worse bond. Those that are more loosely bond will pop up.
• Inadequate cleaning before tiling. Cleaning the floor is more than just wanting for your workspace to be clean. It is also about making sure that the tiles are placed well and that they are bonded with the subfloor.
  If you apply adhesive to the floor that has dirt on it, the adhesive will not stick to the subfloor. It will stick to the first solid particle it touches – the dirt. This means that the tiles will not stick to the subfloor either and therefore buckle soon.

Issues due to Inadequate Tiling Work

This list of issues will definitely persuade you not to do the tiling yourself or not to work with inexperienced and unknown tilers. Always work with the tiling professionals because you can avoid the following reasons for the tile buckling.

• Tiling work done without adhesives. There are some tiles, like the vinyl flooring tiles, that can, in some cases, be placed without the adhesives. This is not a good practice, because it is a one way street to tile tenting.
• Wrongly installed movement joints. The movement joints are very important. They should be used properly. While the tiles can seem like they are this solid object that doesn’t move, they do breathe a little.
  They expand and shrink due to temperature changes, just like everything else. So, if the movement joints are not good, these movements will cause the tile to pop eventually.
• The concrete curing was not completed. The concrete curing requires time and it involves certain processes that cannot be sped up. If you are too impatient and the concrete hasn’t completed the curing process before the tiles are placed over it, the tiles will be under compression. It is obvious what will happen to the compressed tiles – they will buckle.
• Adhesives and bonding material are of poor quality. This issue is even more obvious if the tiles are exposed to the direct sunlight, because, then, the adhesives dry off more quickly. Low quality adhesives are not strong enough to keep the tile in place.
  When that happens, and we know that the tiles expand and shrink, sooner or later, the tile will pop because the bonding material will not be able to stop it. That is why it is important to always use high quality bonding material from the proven manufacturers.

Everybody makes mistakes, but it is less likely that a professional tiler will make them. The tiling work that they do every day gives them the experience to make judgement calls about the quality of adhesives, subflooring and much more.

That is what you pay for – skill and experience in tiling. However, it doesn’t mean that you should overpay for these things. Get quotes from several professional tilers in your area and plan your budget accordingly.