Hi Tom,

I was called by a client to examine a job and to figure out why her travertine floor came up its third year post installation.
From what I’ve seen in the installion process, the installer used first a mixture of cement, sand, mortor mix and thinset combine.
This he first set on the sub-floor followed by the travetine which the installer placed thinset on the back. This seemed pretty sound yet I’m confused.

Any ideas to this problem would be highly valued.

Thank you for your time
Romel

Hello Romel,

Yes, this does sound like a good installation process for floor tile preparation and follows in line with TCA standards. The one part which you did not mention was whether any thinset was stuck to the back of the travertine when the tile came up. During travertine tile installation, the bottom of the tiles should be wiped with a wet sponge and then a scratch coat (back-butter) of the thinset put on them. The corners should be buttered a little thicker. If you do not see thinset on the back of the travertine when the tiles came up, then this step was skipped. This means the tile was dusty with calcium residue from the original fabrication process, which creates a possible bond-break situation.

Why is this step skipped sometimes? There are two reasons. First, there are some very good latex modified thinsets in the marketplace that will create a strong bond even if the tile is not washed and scratched. Still, I would recommend that at least the corners are back-buttered. Second, the wash and back-butter take more time so some installers just skip it.

Try to find the brand of the thinset that was used to adhere the tile. The problem lies in that product and the application of it.

Best wishes,
Tom Cordova

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Answers to Travertine Questions..., Installation Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.