H.I.N. pt3

More updates for Tuesday. One of the reasons it took so long to get this party started was determining the cause of my ceramic floors cracking.

The first area manager, Dude3, said I had a crowning floor joist problem because there was no vapor barrier under my kitchen. I then asked Dude3 how come no other floor joists were crowning as there is no vapor barrier anywhere under my home; additionally I asked why the crack were 36" apart, the width of hardibacker board, and not 16" on center like floor joists would be. Stunned silence, and Dude3 is no longer employed by Generic home improvement center.

A representative from HardiBacker, Dude4, finally came to my home in October made me sign about twenty release forms and chipped up two tiles in my kitchen. He determined that since the HardiBacker piece seams had not been taped, faulty installation, that this was the reason the tile was cracking. Generic home improvement center then decides to fix all tile in my home and not just the kitchen area since it is likely that all HardiBacker seams are not taped.

Sunday, 01/07/07, the delivery truck arrives with only 1/4" HardiBacker. Two-thirds of my home's tiel flooring is on 1/2" Hardi and only the kitchen is on 1/4". Once again I am placed in a day long waiting loop to correct this problem. Tuesday, generic home improvement center's delivery department calls me at 1430 to say they are "coming over to replace that pallet of 1/4" with 1/2" HardiBacker." I called back and told Dude5 that I only need 29 sheets of 1/2" and it's not an even exchange of one pallet for another. This sparks a barrage of questions for me as if I am qualified to answer contractor or flooring questions. I happily told Dude5 to figure it out himself. The reason I have no patience for Dude5 is the Dude2, the installer, has now determined that the kitchen installation was done on top of "floating linoleum." I will stop at this point and explain the physics of a ceramic tile installation.

In a house with wooden joists and plywood sub-flooring, those surface are prone to expansion and contraction and possibly some additional movement as the material ages and settles. The HardiBacker is fastened to the sub-flooring with screws, they used nails in mine, so that it essentially "becomes" the sub-floor. HardiBacker is a semi-porous material that allows the next component of the installation to soak into its surfaces, the same can be said for the backside or downward facing side of a piece of ceramic tile. Thinset is a type of mortar/adhesive That soaks partially into the HardiBacker and partially into the back of the ceramic tile. The goal is to make the Sub-floor, HardiBacker and tile become one solid piece throughout the installation. This way when your wooden sub-flooring swells, contracts or moves with settling the entire new floor moves as one unit. This is very important since wood will flex and move while ceramic tile will not. The point was that if the different pieces of HardiBacker were not taped together they could move in different direction with their respective pieces of sub-flooring. Sounds good to me, I don't care, fix my floor! Skip to Today when Dude2 uses the phrase "floating linoleum." When this type of floor is installed a 1/4" piece of plywood is tacked to your existing sub-floor and then the linoleum is jut rolled out and cut to fit. It isn't glued down and is only attached at the edges. The "float" is to allow the linoleum to flex, expand and contract with either the sub-floor or temperature changes. This, in theory, greatly increases the longevity of the linoleum by preventing stretching and cracking. Also, this is apparently VERY BAD to install ceramic tile on top of due to the aforementioned reason of attaching something inflexible to something that is very flexible.

Dude2 is also having GREAT DIFFICULTY separating the tile/HardiBacker from the sub-flooring while his daughter, Chick2, is easily peeling it off of the linoleum. He asks me if it would be ok to just do the kitchen and patch the hole he made, about 7 square feet, in the living room. Well how the hell would I know? I just want my floor fixed and I don't want to rest to crack. Another call by to Generic home improvement center to determine the best course of action and find out if we can get some extra warranty in case we do decide to only fix the kitchen. While you were reading this, I was drafting another letter to Generic home improvement center's corporate office. It will be posted tomorrow.