House Shifting - Paint and Grout Separated and Cracked
3/10/2013 at 3:45:05 PM
Hi! My husband and I live in an old character home (1932). In November 2011 we gave our kitchen and our entire upstairs floor a complete overhaul. We ripped out the old hardwood throughout the dining room, kitchen and mudroom and replaced it with ceramic tile.
Now, as time goes on, the house shifts and the grout, mainly by the back door in the mudroom is starting to crack and sperate. Also, we've primed and painted pine wainscotting in laytex house/trim paint and that seperates during the winter (exposing the wood) as well.
My questions are: Is there any way of fixing the cracked grout now without having to rip out all the tiles? If we can fix it, is there anything we can do to keep the problem from happening every year?
2) Is there a better paint or prep we can do for the wood wainscotting when painting?
Thank you.
-Nichole
3/10/2013 at 6:42:20 PM
I'm afraid that the cracking in your groute will continue. You should have laid down new plywood over the existing sub floor. Then applied mesh and pre tile cement and level. Or tile prep sheets over the new plywood and then tiled.
You can use a small grinder and remove the bad area's. Blend into the decent grout by leveling up to it. Then re grout them. But you will be doing this every couple of years I'm afraid.
Regarding the trims. Is this occuring on inside or outside walls? If it is only happening on an exterior wall, you may have a moisture problem. If not, did you use latex primer as well? If so sand to the wood in all area's that are seperating or crackling. Then prime with an oil based primer. Zinsser Bulls Eye is a good product. After letting the primer cure for a couple of days, use what ever paint you wish to finish it.
Hope it works out for you.
3/10/2013 at 6:47:43 PM
You can repair the grout but the cracking would just happen again. The only way to repair is to take up all the tile and prepair your subfloor better. At this point I would use a product called ditra by schluter. Without going into all the details you can check out this product on line to tell you why it makes a differens or in my opinion, it's the only way.
As for the wainsctting, it sounds it wasn't primed properly, also for wood oilpaint is still the best way.
3/10/2013 at 6:59:23 PM
Totally agree with Nicolaas about the Ditra best product on the market.
As far as the wainscotting goes I would sand it all down use a top line oil based primer such as Zinzzer or Sherwin Williams multie purpose primer then top coat it with a top line latex.
Not sure in Edmonton but here in Ontario oil paint is illegal to sell and use sellers are fined $5000 per gallon no question asked its a fine on the spot.
3/10/2013 at 7:02:12 PM
Also forgot to mention oil based paints are no good for most applications anyway because it holds in the moisture which causes mold.
3/10/2013 at 7:34:40 PM
Hi Nichole,
Did you install a galvanized mesh and scratch coat before installing your tiles? What type of mortar did your use?
Dave Mayer
Lohrer Contracting Ltd.
3/13/2013 at 9:40:35 PM
It's only your grout that is cracking? Or is your tiles poping too? Did any of your tiles crack? What did you use to glue them?
There is many of diffrent factors that can be causing your problem.
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