Carpentry
Floor tile is lifting, cracked or loose
A loose floor tile is a trip claim waiting to be filed, and the tile is rarely the thing that failed.
Isolate it first if there is a raised edge anybody can catch. A lifted tile in a walkway is the most straightforward liability on a commercial floor, and coning it takes a minute.
Then tap across the surrounding floor with a coin and listen, because that tells you the size of the job before anybody quotes it.
The hollow test
Bonded tile sounds solid and dull. Tile that has lost its bond sounds hollow and noticeably higher pitched. Work outward from the failure in every direction and mark the boundary with tape.
The hollow area is almost always considerably larger than the tiles that have visibly come loose, and establishing how far it runs decides whether this is a patch or a section. Finding that out afterward is how a small job becomes a series of them.
What actually failed
Rarely the tile. Underneath it there is an adhesive bed and a substrate, and the failure is usually in one of those.
Moisture in or under the slab, which breaks the adhesive bond over time and is the most common cause in this climate. It frequently pairs with a smell, and our article on a musty smell with no visible water covers finding moisture that is not showing itself.
Substrate movement, where a floor deflects under load more than the tile can tolerate. Common where heavy racking, equipment or traffic has been introduced into a space that was not laid for it.
Missing movement joints. A tiled floor expands, and if there is nowhere for it to go the compression releases as tenting, where tiles lift and meet in a ridge. It happens suddenly and it usually means the original installation filled the joints with grout.
Impact damage, which is the one genuinely local cause: a dropped item, a pallet truck, a delivery. That one is a patch.
Grout tells you first
Grout cracking along a line, or turning to powder, is normally the first visible sign that something below is moving or wet. Grout that keeps failing in the same place after being repaired is not a grout problem.
Worth checking the perimeter too. Where a floor meets a wall, a column or a threshold, a compressed or crushed joint is a sign the floor is under load it cannot relieve.
Doing the repair so it holds
The moisture or movement behind it has to be dealt with, or the new tile fails the same way, which is the difference between a repair and a recurring cost.
Match the replacement before starting. Commercial tile ranges change and are discontinued, and a floor repaired in a visibly different tile reads worse than the damage did. Where matching is impossible, taking the repair to a natural break line, a doorway or a change of material usually looks deliberate rather than patched.
Check whether spare tile from the original installation is on site. It very often is, in a store room nobody has opened for years, and it is worth ten minutes looking before ordering.
The record to keep
When it was found, where, what was done, and when. A trip hazard that was identified and isolated promptly sits very differently from one that was not, and the difference lives in a dated record rather than in anyone's recollection.
Photograph the hollow area boundary you marked, because it is also the baseline for whether the problem is spreading.
Who carries this out
Tile, flooring, substrate preparation, movement joints and the making good around them are performed directly by our own technicians. So is the carpentry, the baseboard and the threshold work that usually comes with it. TrionX carries general liability and workers' compensation on that work, and none of it requires a Florida contractor license.
Where the moisture source turns out to be plumbing, roofing or a condensate line, that is coordinated through licensed contractors because Florida requires a license for those at any job size. The sequence matters: source first, dry, then floor. Tiling over a wet slab is money spent twice.
When it cannot wait
Any raised edge or rocking tile in a walkway, a public area or an escape route is today, at least to the point of isolating it properly. Tenting is the same answer and it tends to worsen quickly.
A hairline crack in a tile in a low-traffic corner can go on the quarterly walk and be batched with other work, provided somebody re-taps the area each quarter to see whether the hollow zone is growing.
Common questions
Questions we get asked about this
How do I tell how far the problem spreads?
Tap across the floor with a coin or the handle of a screwdriver and listen. Bonded tile sounds solid and dull. Debonded tile sounds hollow. The hollow area is nearly always much larger than the tiles that have visibly failed.
Can you just replace the loose tiles?
Where the cause was a one-off impact, yes. Where tiles are debonding across an area, replacing individual ones puts new tile onto the same failing bed and it comes back. The extent has to be established before it is worth pricing.
What does tenting mean?
Tiles lifting off the floor and meeting in a ridge, usually along a line. It means the floor is under compression with nowhere to expand, normally because movement joints were left out or filled with grout. It happens suddenly and it is a serious trip hazard.
Is this a trip hazard we have to deal with immediately?
A raised edge in a public or staff route is exactly what a claim is built on. Isolate it or cover it properly the moment it is found, and record when it was found and what was done, because that record matters as much as the repair.
Keep reading
Related field notes
One company, whoever does the work
Our technicians handle the trades that need no state license, and licensed contractors handle the ones that do. Either way we scope it, book the visit and file the record. Tell us the property and the problem and we will come back with a window. Call out of hours and someone who works here answers.