Vent: Quote from my contractor that still bugs me 3 months later

So I hired a guy to redo my basement bathroom here in Edmonton, and he told me 'just use mastic for the shower walls, it's fine.' I did a quick search and found out mastic should never go in wet areas (it re-emulsifies). $800 worth of tile work had to be ripped out after I caught it. I switched to a thinset pro but it cost me an extra week of delay. Has anyone else had to second-guess their contractor's material choices like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia28626d ago

800 bucks for tile work in a Edmonton basement bathroom? Man that's rough. I had a guy try to sell me on mastic for my bathroom floor, said it was "good enough" for a half bath. I told him no way, not after reading the same stuff you did. Thinset is the only way to go for wet areas. Mastic is basically glorified glue that turns back into goo when it gets wet. You dodged a bullet catching it early even with the delay. When I do my own tile now, I always double check the mortar bag against the tile type. Porcelain and ceramic need different stuff sometimes. Cheap contractors love using mastic because it's faster to work with. But fast doesn't mean right. I'd rather take an extra week than have tiles falling off the wall in a year.

linda_butler2826d ago

@julia286, is mastic really that serious or is this just overblown internet lore?