No products in the cart.
Expert Answers
Ceramic and Porcelain Tile Debonding Tile Expert Answers failures Flood installation Movement Joints Tenting
Will the Cold Temperatures cause Tiles to Tent, and Will the insurance provide coverage for a tented tile floor?
QUESTION
Our house is 25 years old (we have lived in it for 15 years) and this week our stone floor in the kitchen has began to tent. I have been reading about it and the most likely cause for us I believe is we live in south Louisiana where it rarely gets cold and we have gone from 70's down to 20's now for the second time in weeks and it is staying that cold for several days.It seems that it happens if not put down properly but since it has been 25 years I wondered if insurance can still say it is because it was not put down properly? I also read that the tenting more typically occurs within the first 12-18 months or 2 summer and winter cycles.
Second I wondered if you could tell me what I should expect the insurance guy to do when he comes and looks at it. (I called them Monday morning and they were to come today at 2 pm but they had to cancel because the insurance agency wanted them off of the potentially dangerous roads).
ANSWER
ANSWER - Normally it isn't the cold that leads to a tile tenting, it is the higher temperatures or moisture that causes expansion in tiles that can lead to tile tenting if the tile wasn't installed correctly. When a tile gets cold it contracts. When a tile gets warm or absorbs water it expands. If there are no movement joints to mitigate the expansion of the tile, and if the tile isn't bonded as well as it should be to its substrate, then when the tile expands it can cause the tile to tent up or debond from the substrate.Depending on the respective state laws, some insurance companies will cover a loss if the tile tented or debonded as the result of a certain weather or flooding event; even if the tile had not been originally installed correctly. Other insurance companies will take the position that if the tile had originally been installed correctly, then the tile wouldn't have tented as a result of the weather or water loss event, and they will not provide coverage.
7 thoughts on “Will the Cold Temperatures cause Tiles to Tent, and Will the insurance provide coverage for a tented tile floor?”
Leave a Reply
I am experiencing this tenting. I live in this condoc3 years.Never had an issue with my tile. I live in Broward county florida.we just experienced 3 days of extreme cold prior to warming up?
Florida tends to sell and install a lot of cheaper non-vitreous tiles that have a greater propensity to expand with heat and moisture and contract with drying and cooling. Then if you don’t have movement joints installed at the perimeters of the tile at restraining walls or within the field of tile every 20 to 25 feet to mitigate the potential expansion and contraction, and if the tile isn’t bonded as well as it could be, then you can end up having tiles tent up.
As a point of reference if you take a 3′ thin metal ruler and constrain one side and then on the other side push it in 1/16″ the center of the ruler will bow up about 2″. That is an example of the type of stress that can develop if the tile installation is restrained and then the tiles expand.
You might be able to replace the tiles, but the condition is likely to reoccur if you do not add some movement joints.
A movement joint is either a open gap at perimeter walls covered with a wall base. Or it is a open gap filled with a bond breaking tape or foam backer rod and then filled with an ASTM C920 Traffic grade sealant.
Steve mine has done the same thing this same weekend of cold weather. What did your insurance company tell you. I am waiting on a adjuster now.?
The same thing happened in my house in Shreveport, LA. State Farm is denying our claim basing their decision on a hairline crack in the slab where the tiles buckled. There are no cracks in our walls, around doors or windows, in the ceiling. And this exact same thing happened to someone we know on the exact same day. Our temps had been below freezing for 3 or more days and was rising quickly that day. I don’t know how to fight the insurance company without hiring an attorney, which we can’t afford. So it looks like we will be living with this exposed concrete until we can come up with the money to fix it. I hate insurance companies so much.
A crack in the concrete slab by itself would not cause tile tenting. If the tile tenting occurred as a result of the weather event then normally the insurance company will cover the claim. Of course there has to be evidence that the tenting isn’t pre-existing.
There are insurance public adjusters who can be retained to advocate for you with the insurance company. They take the assignment on contingency and take a relatively high percentage of the claim as their fee. They tend not to be completely honest with the insurance companies to try to increase the value of the claim to benefit their client and themselves.
I am in Deltona Florida. A condo owner. Bee here 3 years no problems. Floor was down when purchased. 3 days hard freeze. Tiles started popping and tenting in 3 places. To many people having these issues with the recent freezes in Florida. We normally have not had this type of cold for 3 days straight
The cause of the tile tenting is likely as stated in my response above. If your insurance considered this climate condition as a covered event then I would expect the tile tenting would be considered resultant damages from the event.