Broken bathroom floor tile - am I liable?

Vergo777

I'm a tenant on an AST contract and have an en-suite bathroom in my bedroom. Yesterday, while coming out of the shower and stepping on the bathroom floor just outside I heard a slight noise and turns out there's now a crack on that tile as shown in the below picture.

i(dot)imgur(dot)com/Bu7DVkV.jpg

As a new user I'm not allowed to post links apparently so had to replace actual .'s in the link with (dot)

I haven't done anything at all to damage the tile in any other way (dropping something heavy on it etc.), I literally just stepped on it like normal while coming out of the shower so I can't really figure out what might have caused it to break. The only thing I could think of is I normally get the bathroom floor slightly wet after a shower when heading towards the door to grab my towel, but surely such a tiny amount of water shouldn't be causing decent quality tiles to come loose and break??? :huh::huh::think:

Anyway, am I going to be held liable for whatever this is going to cost to get repaired? If it was something really obviously my fault like dropping a heavy item that damaged the tile I'd of course have no problems accepting it but I literally just put my foot on it like normal...

Slithery

They were fitted poorly.

Floor tiles are meant to have a full bed of adhesive underneath them. They will only break in your situation if this wasn't done properly.

Proving this to your LL won't be an easy task.

pramsay13

Have a look under the sink or in hall cupboard etc. for the last few tiles when they finished the job.
If you find them it will be easy enough to take off the damaged one and replace.

AlexMac

Looking at the image at
http://i.imgur.com/Bu7DVkV.jpg
I agree that inadequate or incompetent fitting has cause this crack, in that if you had, say, dropped something heavy on the tile, it would have crazed, chipped or starred at the impact point, rather than cracking cleanly across. The clean crack implies that the tile was, as suggested above, laid on an incomplete or uneven bed of adhesive, or that the "sub-floor" itself is uneven, so that the tile, in effect tried to flex under even slight weight, causing the break. Imagine putting anything rigid and brittle on a bendy or uneven surface then applying pressure to opposite corners.

In fact, looking at the messy traces of adhesive where the tile meets the wall, and the uneven grouting between tiles, the job seems generally unprofessional and incompetent. If more tiles have been similarly poorly laid, others may also crack. Water is irrelevant.

I bet if you were to tap the floor in different places it would sound hollow in places where there is inadequate adhesive. Or maybe the whole bathroom floor is laid not on a solid, even concrete floor (usual only on the ground floor of older buildings or, if upstairs, in modern flats) but on a wooden "suspended" floor of boards over joists, possibly without the usual re-inforcement of a thick, rigid slab of plywood which tiling requires.

However it happened, the responsible thing would be to say to the LL that your have taken informed advice to this effect, and that they should take it up with the fitter or with whoever did the job and demand a repair. But the LL might be reluctant to do this. In fact, the work looks so rough that the LL or a mate may have carried out a DIY job. A pity as the tiles are quite good quality.

You could just report it now, or suggest the LL call in the original fitter or a professional tiler for an expert opinion, and ask them to fix it. If they could source a matching tile it would take half an hour, unless lots more need to be replaced. Our kids house had a similar shoddily tiled DIY kitchen floor, over floorboards with just flexible hardboard instead of rigid ply, and dozens cracked (we simply ripped 'em up and laid laminate, which flexes OK)

Or you could just leave it til the end of your tenancy (by which time more might have cracked) then, if the LL wanted remedial costs, tough it out via the Deposit Protection scheme by arguing incompetent fitting. But I'd try to sort it now.

Not sure you should try a fix yourself, but if you do, the other place fitters leave surplus tiles is behind the kitchen plinth, under the base units. But if you are as hopeless as most Millenials at DIY, maybe best not mess about!

It's really not a big deal, so good luck sorting it

Sharon87

Just inform your landlord a tile cracked, mention you just stepped on it and it broke. They may repair it if they're good. The main thing is informing your landlord. If you move out and not tell the landlord of any damage they then may take it from your deposit. I've had a few faults in my flat, I told my landlady and she fixed them.

If you have a decent landlord it should be fine.

AdrianC

AlexMac wrote: »

Looking at the image at

Fixed link fixed.