Cracked bathroom tiles

dinolep · Post by **dinolep** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 7:56 am

Hi,
I recently tiled my bathroom and have noticed in the last few days that they have begun cracking. To prepare the surface I took the old plaster off and went right back to the brick work. Then screwed hardibacker cement boards to the wall, siliconed the joints and tiled in limestone tiles with flexible adhesive.
Now I have a crack line running through the tiles horizontally and vertically which looks like it could be along the hardibacker joints.
Any thoughts as to what could have caused this as it has been fine for the last 9 months and has only now just appeared and got worse by the day.
Nothing has hit the shower wall hard causing the boards to flex or anything like that.
It puzzles me.......
Any help is appreciated!

marc1106 · Post by **marc1106** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:10 am

did you stagger the joints in the Hardibacker?

marc1106 · Post by **marc1106** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:11 am

hang on ! did you screw the boards directly to the brickwork also?

dinolep · Post by **dinolep** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:56 pm

Yes they were screwed to the brickwork, using rawlplugs. Should they have gone onto batons? This would have brought the wall out too far to get my bath in the right place though. The joints were staggered and siliconed to allow for expansion and waterproof jointing.

marc1106 · Post by **marc1106** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:30 pm

aha, thats where you went wrong, Hardibacker was designed to be screwed to stud work, and the joints should be sealed with the joint tape and tile adhesive.
For a solid wall that couldnt be studded then you shouldve used Bal quickset render.
sorry to be the bearer of bad news.