Bathroom Renovation - Contractor Screwup

[Vincenzo Corleone]

My wife and I are in the process of renovating our master bathroom. We decided to ditch the tub/shower combo and convert it to just a stand-up shower with a linear, tile-able drain. The contractors had to lay concrete in the shower alcove into which the linear drain was embedded. The shower floor and linear drain cover are tiled with a basket weave pattern. I included photos.

The shower is near completion and I noticed a screwup - kinda major to me and one that doesn't have a realistic solution. The linear drain on one end is further from the wet wall than the other - it's about a 1/4" difference. Because my wife and I are living in our home during this renovation, and because we have a small-ish place, the workers would place a tarp over the shower floor and on top of that, place a bunch of their equipment onto the tarp at the end of the day. This is the reason I didn't notice the crooked drain right away.

Because the drain is crooked by about a 1/4", the guy who tiled installed the tile to line up with the drain, so the tile is off. At first I thought the walls weren't squared, but I then realized it's all because of the drain. The photos will hopefully make this clearer.

My wife is the passive type. However, I'm upset. What recourse do I have? What would you do? Thanks in advance.
View attachment 41659

View attachment 41660

View attachment 41661

 

[Scrapr]

I would find out who set the drain. Plumber? Tile setter? Sometimes they (plumber) leave the drain a bit loose before final fit. I would then ask what solution they can come up with to "fix it". (knowing full well the shower floor is coming up.

I'm sorry that is not acceptable. Tile setter should have pointed it out...esp if you were in the house

 

[Aerides]

You tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not acceptable, and you want it remedied. The tile guy should have said something before proceeding...

It's not your job to come up with a solution. (rip it all up and do it again works). Going forward, inspect everything every day. There is always some stuff like this to deal with.

 

[dak2018]

Looks like the tile guy was trying to correct for the plumber's error. The thing I find more disturbing is that the pattern inside the drain does not line up with the pattern outside the drain. At the very least that should be corrected.

The slight angle looks really bad right now since you know about it and are staring at it. Your house whether to insist on the whole thing getting ripped up and done over, but that might well mean lots of tarot - depends on if this is in a mortar bed or is using a different waterproofing system.

We have had various improvement projects done over the years and there always seems to be something that could be done better - particularly when I do it myself!

 

[latexman]

I hope they haven’t been paid in full yet! You’ll get a better response if you’ve retained a significant %.

 

[levindb]

I have a similar style drain that I installed myself. Try to pull up the drain cover, and spin it around 180 degrees to see if the tile pattern looks any better on the drain cover. You will be pulling the cover off a number of times in the future to clean out hair and gunk, so it is not that big of a deal...might as well learn how to do it.

While I would tell the plumber, and ask him how he would like to handle this situation, I would not force the repair. Only you and your DW will know about it, unless you have a large gathering in your shower. You want the plumber to learn, but if you piss him off, there is no telling what hidden dangers may be created during the repair process.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

I have a similar style drain that I installed myself. Try to pull up the drain cover, and spin it around 180 degrees to see if the tile pattern looks any better on the drain cover. You will be pulling the cover off a number of times in the future to clean out hair and gunk, so it is not that big of a deal...might as well learn how to do it.

While I would tell the plumber, and ask him how he would like to handle this situation, I would not force the repair. Only you and your DW will know about it, unless you have a large gathering in your shower. You want the plumber to learn, but if you piss him off, there is no telling what hidden dangers may be created during the repair process.

This is exactly my fear.

Edited to add: Regarding your reasoning behind not forcing the repair, you're right, we won't have a large gathering in our shower. However, we will have to look at it every single day for the rest of our lives and it will piss me off. Not to mention the fact that we're spending a lot of money on this reno. Just letting it go doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Mark1]

..... However, we will have to look at it every single day for the rest of our lives and it will piss me off. .....

This is why I too would make it right, regardless of cost to me.

 

[levindb]

Sometimes an adult beverage can help your situation
...look up rather than looking down
...bring DW in the shower with you...and if you are still looking down, well then, I cannot help you.

 

[RobbieB]

That quarter inch wouldn't bother me a bit.

What would bother me is a low spot off the drain that just puddled water.

 

[MC Rider]

If it works, Let it Be.
Once past the initial freak out, you will notice it only rarely and in passing.
I predict.

 

[Ronstar]

There are 2 choices. Live with it or tear it out and fix it. While it may look like a lot of work to most of us here, it may not be for an experienced contractor. Looks like tear out the floor tile, turn the drain a little and re-tile. A couple days of work at most.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

There are 2 choices. Live with it or tear it out and fix it. While it may look like a lot of work to most of us here, it may not be for an experienced contractor. Looks like tear out the floor tile, turn the drain a little and re-tile. A couple days of work at most.

Wouldn't a third choice be to not pay him in full? We have two installments left.

 

[RobbieB]

You could do that, but you risk a lien.

 

[MC Rider]

There are 2 choices. Live with it or tear it out and fix it. While it may look like a lot of work to most of us here, it may not be for an experienced contractor. Looks like tear out the floor tile, turn the drain a little and re-tile. A couple days of work at most.

So, a couple grand $$$$?

 

[Bamaman]

It's hard to see very well. Often such problems are a product of a slightly crooked wall.

But it's one of those important issues since it can be seen with the naked eye. Tell the contractor you'll pay in full when the correction has been made. Porcelain tiles can be corrected by breaking the tiles and installing it back square. No big deal as the whole floor won't have to come up.

My daughter just had all new tile installed in a large bath and potty room. They tore out the tub and put in a soaking tub. I thought $8500 was a ridiculous labor price. Then a glass company charged $3,500 for adding two walls of glass to a shower pan.

I am in the process of retiling a medium size bathroom floor, and I have an electric jack hammer that ate the old tile like butter. My cost of all supplies for one floor is about $250. Then I'm pouring a new shower pan and tiling the walls in a 36 x 42" shower downstairs for about $250. Worse part of the job was hauling 700 lbs. of old tile, mortar and cement backerboard up a hill to my truck.

Most baths have relatively few square feet of tile. I once laid 58 cent ceramic tile in a bathroom on the diagonal, and I only had $135 in the job with 1/4 inch Wonderboard, tile, thinset and grout. That floor sold the house for list price to 3rd person that looked at it.

 

[Ronstar]

Wouldn't a third choice be to not pay him in full? We have two installments left.

I didn’t say to pay him extra. The contractor should fix it and you pay him the contract amount. The contractor needs to fix the mistake at his cost.

I’d wait until it was fixed before paying the last 2 installments.

 

[Ronstar]

So, a couple grand $$$$?

Probably. But I’m not saying that OP should pay for it. Contractor should eat the cost of the fix. Depending on the amount of framing work that was needed to create the shower, the plumber may have put the drain in ok, and maybe a new wall may have been put in off a little. There’s going to be some finger pointing going on.

 

[Ronstar]

You could do that, but you risk a lien.

Not if contractor agrees to fix it at his cost and OP gets a lien waiver after making the final payment.

 

[ERD50]

You tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not acceptable, and you want it remedied. The tile guy should have said something before proceeding...

It's not your job to come up with a solution. (rip it all up and do it again works). Going forward, inspect everything every day. There is always some stuff like this to deal with.

Agreed. It looks crooked, it's not to going to get any better.

I had something similar. In 2016, I had a block patio put in (by a reputable long term local company). At first, it looked great, then later in the day, something was bugging me. Something was crooked. I thought it was the little wood deck I put over the cement steps out the back door, but I finally realized the entire patio was installed a little off (making my straight deck look crooked!).

Based on suggestions I got here, I did not offer any solutions. I called the guy, he looked it over, and I just kept repeating that it was crooked, I just kept showing the measurements, showing how it looked crooked to the eye. He finally blurted out, "The only thing we can do is lift it all up, and reset the entire thing!"

I said "OK, if you think that's what it is going to take to fix it." I could tell he was a little PO'd, but they were out in a few days, got it all re-done in less than a day with a smaller crew, and it looked great. It would have bugged me no end to live with that.

Have them fix it. No matter what it takes.

-ERD50

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Agreed. It looks crooked, it's not to going to get any better.

I had something similar. In 2016, I had a block patio put in (by a reputable long term local company). At first, it looked great, then later in the day, something was bugging me. Something was crooked. I thought it was the little wood deck I put over the cement steps out the back door, but I finally realized the entire patio was installed a little off (making my straight deck look crooked!).

Based on suggestions I got here, I did not offer any solutions. I called the guy, he looked it over, and I just kept repeating that it was crooked, I just kept showing the measurements, showing how it looked crooked to the eye. He finally blurted out, "The only thing we can do is lift it all up, and reset the entire thing!"

I said "OK, if you think that's what it is going to take to fix it." I could tell he was a little PO'd, but they were out in a few days, got it all re-done in less than a day with a smaller crew, and it looked great. It would have bugged me no end to live with that.

Have them fix it. No matter what it takes.

-ERD50

Thanks for sharing your experience. This gives me some encouragement.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

And check this out. Here's a photo of the tile work at the wall opposite the drain. You can tell by the pattern that something is off. The contractor assures me the walls are leveled and squared.
View attachment 41665

 

[zinger1457]

Can't see it on the photo but is the drain square to the opposite wall? If the shower walls aren't square there will be some offset unless you want them to tear everything out and rebuild the walls. Have done some tiling work and walls are rarely (almost never) square, can usually hide it with wall baseboard but obviously that won't work in a shower.
Edit: Never mind, see you added a photo while I was writing my post. The opposite wall sure looks like it's a lot more than 1/4 inch off.

 

[Ronstar]

If your shower is a simple square or rectangle, you can easily check for square by measuring diagonals between opposite corners. If the diagonals match, then it’s square.

The photo looks like the tile guy put the tile in square to the left edge, and that edge doesn’t look square to the wall.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Can't see it on the photo but is the drain square to the opposite wall? If the shower walls aren't square there will be some offset unless you want them to tear everything out and rebuild the walls. Have done some tiling work and walls are rarely (almost never) square, can usually hide it with wall baseboard but obviously that won't work in a shower.

Well, the bathroom had been demolished down to the studs. The contractor told me that the walls are level, squared and plumbed. But I'll see if I can determine that myself somehow.