Tile-on-tile shower floor cracking, what to do?
Hi everyone,
We recently moved into an apartment that was empty for about a year. Soon after moving in, we noticed a cracked tile.
When my partner removed the broken pieces to repair it, we discovered that the previous owner installed the new tiles directly on top of an older layer of tiles. My partner replaced the tile, but a large gap where the grout failed right next to the linear shower drain appears after just two months.
We have called three contractors, and they all gave different advice:
Contractor 1: Says we must tear out the entire shower—both the floor and all the wall tiles—and redo the waterproofing from scratch.
Contractor 2: Says we only need to remove the floor tiles and the bottom row of wall tiles, the floor waterproofing still have to be done for the entire area
Contractor 3: Says the issue is caused by poor installation technique, which is making the tiles shift and press against each other.
Given that this is a tile-over-tile installation and the crack keeps returning, what is the correct way to fix this? Do we really need a full demolition of the walls, or is replacing the floor and bottom row enough? We also thinking of installing a shower acrylic tray if that help in the long run? Thank you everyone!