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4 months after a full remodeling of the bathroom the grout in the shower floor is cracking and getting chipped.

The contractor who did the job says it's normal and it's the house movement. He wants to use the same grout material (Prism Ultimate Performance grout) to fix it, just adding more grout to it. The rep at Daltide (where we bought it) says it's the wrong material (although that's not what he said when he sold it to us) for a shower and we should remove all the grout, let the area completely dry, and then use siliconized caulking.

It's only in the shower floor area where it gets wet, no cracks in the rest of the bathroom.

What should I do?

Picture of grout

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  • Is this in the middle of the shower floor, or in the corners where it meets the wall? If the contractor says it's normal, what is his plan to make it different this time around?
    – spuck
    Commented Oct 21 at 22:52
  • What is under the tile? Any deflection caused by a person standing will cause plain grout to crack.
    – Mattman944
    Commented Oct 21 at 23:18
  • It's in the corners with the shower wall and the shower step where the door is. Not sure what he plans on doing differently. Also not sure why wouldonly be where the shower floor is, if it was related to the house movement I imagine I'd see cracks in the rest of the bathroom grout.
    – Mike
    Commented Oct 21 at 23:21
  • under the tile there is hot mop
    – Mike
    Commented Oct 21 at 23:24
  • What is under the hot mop, plywood?
    – Mattman944
    Commented Oct 22 at 1:08

2 Answers 2

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Cracking of grout is caused by movement. There are certain areas where movement is very hard to avoid. Usually these are where tile meets something else. For example, the line between a countertop and a backsplash, between a bath and the wall, between a door casing and the wall. Anything near the latch side of a door can crack eventually from vibrations from the door slamming.

*In those areas your "it's normal" contractor and your "use silicone" salesmen are correct, it's easier to use something flexible than to try and make these adjacent surfaces rigid enough to avoid cracking.

If your whole house is settling enough to cause cracking grout lines in four months, you'll see signs of that settling elsewhere too. Starting with the corners of window and door openings. Tile or no tile. Let's assume that's not it.

If you don't have either of those two problems, if your grout lines are cracking in random places in the middle of a floor or wall then your problem is not the grout but the preparation of the framing and subsurfaces for the tiling job. If the shower floor is flexing when you stand on it, or if slamming the door causes vibrations and cracking throughout the shower stall and not just very near the door, all those point to a poor tiling job. Grout repair will not help.

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  • Thank you! I've added a picture in the original post so it's clearer to understand what I'm talking about. Jay613, what would you recommend doing? The contractor wants me to sign a waiver for using anything that's not the same grout that he used initially. Even assuming the tiling job was done poorly, re-tiling is not really an option at this stage.
    – Mike
    Commented Oct 22 at 6:15
  • Which crack are we talking about? What is the brown material on the right, is that wood or is it ceramic tile with a wood finish? Are we talking about just that seam between the brown and grey tile? It looks like you already used caulk there and that has cracked .... and you say this is all inside of 4 months?? Or are we talking about the corner bead along the top of the curb, which seems to have come away cleanly from BOTH adjacent tiles, implying that just that piece is moving, IE, not installed correctly?
    – jay613
    Commented Oct 22 at 17:20
  • I'm talikng about the crack that starts from the glass to the edge of the white door frame, which then leaked to the bottom of the step that was initially white and now is brown. There are more cracks inside the shower and outside, between the floor and the step that leads into the shower. Yes, the project was completed in July, and they used caulk, and this is how it looks now and I'm figuring out what needs to be done to solve it.
    – Mike
    Commented Oct 22 at 17:41
  • If water is leaking from the door sill onto the floor outside that's a whole other problem and nothing to do with cracked grout. Water on top of the sill should drip back into the shower. Water that gets through cracks in the grout, or even through the grout itself, should find its way to the drain, not to the bathroom floor. That's all part of the design. It you have THOSE problems, it's a whole new question but I don't think you'll like the answer. What is the brown wall material? Wood?
    – jay613
    Commented Oct 22 at 17:58
  • The brown ribbon piece on the left is tile (wood look but there's no wood). That's the wall of the shower. The white-painted piece is the door frame (not the shower door, the bathroom door), made of wood. The glass (top left corner) is the shower door. you're looking at the side of the door that doesn't open, but rotates against the wall. In order to rotate there is a gap of air there. Inside the shower, there's a rubber that blocks the water when the door is shut, but when we get out, or we leave the door open after showering, the water can get in the gap; a bit probably does, that's normal.
    – Mike
    Commented Oct 22 at 19:43
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Vertical tile that meets horizontal tile can be grouted but that grout will in most times fail.

I see two issues here.

  1. Just the use of grout... I will come back to this.

  2. The grout area was so thin that the grout couldn't adhere to the thinset and pushed out.

Most tile guys just caulk (silicone) this line. I firmly believe in grouting it first. The grout however should be inset of the two tiles meeting not outside of the tiles - which is what your picture shows. I would then apply the silicone caulk in a small bead and if I apply it right it should bond with both the grout and both tiles - in my experience this is a much better bond than just the two tiles with a gap.

To fix this you are going to have to scrape out the grout really well. This won't be an easy task where this is and how thin it is. After that I would try again to add grout to the crack. If I can get a 1/4" in there that should be plenty. Once the grout cures (few days), I would apply silicone. Meaning you need to keep this dry 3-4 days straight.

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