Tile Replacement

Yes. It is careful work, because the tiles around it must not crack or chip:

1. 1

   Rake out the grout around the damaged tile, so it is no longer locked to its neighbours.

2. 2

   Break out the tile from the centre outwards, often after drilling or scoring it, working away from the edges of the good tiles.

3. 3

   Remove the old adhesive back to a flat background, without digging into the wall or floor.

4. 4

   Check the background: if it is loose, damp or flexing, that is put right first.

5. 5

   Fix the new tile on a full bed of adhesive, level with the tiles around it.

6. 6

   Grout and finish: the joints are grouted to match, and sealed or siliconed where needed.

On a floor with underfloor heating, cutting out a tile has to be done without damaging the pipes or cables beneath it. If a heating element has already been damaged, our underfloor heating maintenance and repair service can repair it before the tile goes back.

A small chip in the glaze, for example from a dropped pan, can often be repaired rather than replaced. The chip is cleaned, filled with a colour-matched resin or epoxy filler, levelled and polished. It works well on plain, light and single-colour tiles and on small chips. It is less convincing on patterned or highly polished tiles, and it does not fix a crack that runs through the tile. In those cases, replacing the tile gives a better result.

The hardest part of tile replacement is often the tile itself:

• Spare tiles: If you kept spares from the original job, use those. They come from the same batch, so the shade matches.
• The same range: If the tile is still sold, check the shade or batch code, as colours vary between production runs.
• A hidden tile: A tile can sometimes be taken from behind a bath panel, inside a cupboard or under an appliance, and that gap filled with a close match.
• A deliberate contrast: Where no match exists, a few decorative tiles placed as a pattern can look intended.

Send us a photo and, if you have one, a spare or the box label, and we will advise before any work starts.

Replacing a tile without finding the cause often means it cracks again. The common causes are:

• Impact: A dropped heavy object. Usually a one-off.
• Poor adhesive coverage: Tiles fixed on spots or a thin bed leave hollows underneath, and the tile cracks when stood on.
• Timber floors flexing: Floorboards or thin ply move under load. The floor needs stiffening or overboarding.
• Cracks in the screed: A crack in the concrete or screed below often shows through as a straight line of cracked tiles.
• No movement joints: Tiles laid tight to walls, or across large areas, can crack or lift as the building expands and contracts.
• Heating changes: Underfloor heating switched to full heat too quickly can stress the tiles and adhesive.

Replacing a handful of tiles makes sense when the rest are sound. Retiling through our installing kitchen and bathroom tiles service is usually better when many tiles are cracked or hollow, when cracks keep coming back in a line, or when water has damaged the background. If the grout around sound tiles is tired, re-grouting tiled surfaces at the same time refreshes the whole area.

Cracks that run through tiles and into the wall around them, or that keep widening, can point to building movement. In that case we recommend a structural check, and our underpinning contractors can investigate.

In a shower, a cracked tile can let water reach the wall or floor behind. If you see damp, stains below or loose tiles nearby, our leak detection and pipe repairs service can check for a hidden leak first.