My friend will be getting a resale. I saw the the whole flat are using 24x24 ceramic floor tiles (except kitchen). I realised there are some tiles started to pop up and when I knock on the tiles, there are many hollow sound at many areas.

My questions:

1. As the tiles looks ok, apart from this popping problem, how worst can it get? can I retain the floor tiles without having to re do the tilings?

2. can the problem be fix at certain part (like remove few tiles and fix it) or it must be fix completely (hack up whole flat and do re tiling) ?

Thanks

Hi,

This happened to our flat.. one fine day suddenly heard a loooonng series of craccckkkkk and 16 big tiles popped out to more than 1 inch height.. basically u will get cut if u walk on it..

and because of that air went in and caused another 15-18 tiles in the kitchen to become hollow when we stepped on..

had no choice but to hack off both layers of floor tiles (this was overlay by previous owner) for hall and kitchen !.. and this really caused a huge inconvenience to all of us as we have to stay in the "construction site" for half a mth (some problems faced during the reno).

i swear by hacking off everything and not doing over laying..

My friend will be getting a resale. I saw the the whole flat are using 24x24 ceramic floor tiles (except kitchen). I realised there are some tiles started to pop up and when I knock on the tiles, there are many hollow sound at many areas.

My questions:

1. As the tiles looks ok, apart from this popping problem, how worst can it get? can I retain the floor tiles without having to re do the tilings?

2. can the problem be fix at certain part (like remove few tiles and fix it) or it must be fix completely (hack up whole flat and do re tiling) ?

Thanks

This happened to my previous flat too. The tiles popped up and caved within itself when I decided to leave the few popped up tiles alone. Sounded like an explosion when it happened. I got my contractor who recommended to re-tile the whole flat. Apparently it was due to bad installation from the previous owner's con(old flat also), something to do with the base they used to set the tile.

Redid the tile, and has been happy since then. Call you contractor to re-tile the flat for you, or PM me if you need contact.

Oh.. what I mean is not doing overlay,... maybe cut out the affected portion of the area and re lay the tiles for that portion only...

appreciate if can recommend some private tillers......

I checked with one, hacking alone cost me $2900!

To just do the affected area, the contractors will still need to apply permit from HDB.

The process is the same as applying to hack the whole house, so they can't charge you much cheaper.

Moreover, for small jobs, you need them more than they need your business.

Unless someone recommends you some private tillers, you don't have much option. But be mindful, the tillers are private but to hack on floor, legally I think you still need permit from HDB. Otherwise, the owner may get into trouble.

Why not consider re-doing the whole place. You can fix the affected tiles now.

But if 3 months later, another area start to pop again, then how?

This is very common problem if you have concrete slab. I am living in a metal buildings denver from past 10 years and we have concrete slab. There are too much flexing on floor although we have corrected flex problem but still tiles are popping up. The reason behind this can be poor installation or worng adhesive and wrong technique of adhering the tiles. Another main reason behind this can be excess of moisture. To prevent futher damage, we just keep proper maintenance of tiles and carefully move heavy objects.

I notice this happens with newly built flats but not with those older built flats in 80s/90s

Currently there seems to be more of this incidents lately. 

 

Check out https://renotalk.com/professionals/article/beware-the-popping-tile-phenomenon-in-singapore

This usually happens i think if there are gaps in the cement, in other words contractor trying to save cement