ᐅ Bathroom Renovated – Now the Floor Is Higher! Is This a Defect?

Hello,

we had both of our bathrooms renovated for over 60,000 euros. The whole project was managed by a single "full-service provider" that handles everything from start to finish. Only the electrical work is subcontracted to an external company, but this is included in the bill from the full-service provider.

We are very pleased with the first bathroom, and the second one will be finished soon (probably tomorrow or the day after). The tiler finished today, and tomorrow the final steps will be completed (installing the bathroom furniture and fitting the lights and outlets). The bathroom is located on an upper floor of a single-family house built in the 1980s.

Today, I noticed that the floor level is about 0.7 to 0.8 cm (0.3 inches) higher than the hallway "outside the door." Previously, the bathroom had tiles as well, but they were just removed without apparently taking out the old tile adhesive or screed underneath. I can only explain the level difference this way. I don't believe the new tiles are that much thicker than the old ones.

Now there is a height difference of approximately 0.7 cm (0.3 inches) compared to the hallway, where carpet is installed. The difference compared to the subfloor beneath the carpet is more than 1 cm (0.4 inches).

Is this normal? Do we have to accept this? Is it a defect? Should the company have informed us in advance that it could not be done differently?

The door opens inward and was removed during the renovation. I'm curious how they will react tomorrow when they realize the door will no longer open because there is not enough clearance at the bottom after rehanging it. Or what they will say about it.

Thanks for your answers.

Here are two photos of it.

I also found a photo showing how it looked before the bathroom renovation (unfortunately in very poor quality; I have cropped and enlarged the relevant area). The small yellow tiles are the old bathroom tiles (there used to be a carpet over them long ago). You can see that at the junction between the bathroom and the hallway, the blue carpet laid in the hallway extends slightly into the bathroom and even overlaps the yellow bathroom tiles.

A neat finishing strip and trimming doors is not what you want? Otherwise, I can understand being extremely careful when spending 60,000 euros for two bathrooms.

Thank you for your answers.

toxicmolotow schrieb:

How could an (old) carpet possibly be as thick as a tile, which with the adhesive will surely build up to at least 1 cm (0.4 inches)?

Even if the mosaic tiles may have been somewhat thinner:
In the past, it was common in bathrooms to have tiles on the floor with a carpet placed OVER them. Yet this carpet level was still flush with the carpet in the hallway. So the new tiles would have to be almost one centimeter (0.4 inches) thicker than the old tiles plus the old bathroom carpet combined? Something doesn’t add up here.

I created a schematic cross-section of the transition area between the bathroom and the hallway (bathroom on the left, hallway on the right):

My concern is that before installing the new tiles, the floor wasn’t lowered enough. I took several photos during the construction progress. To me, as a non-expert, it looks like they simply removed the old mosaic tiles but left the old tile adhesive underneath, then applied the new tile adhesive and new tiles directly on top of the old adhesive:

Whether this constitutes a defect or is simply a consequence of the circumstances depends, as always, on what has been agreed upon in detail and in writing. A new tile covering, including adhesive, typically has a total thickness of at least 13–15 mm (0.5–0.6 inches), sometimes more if floor unevenness has been leveled or if the floor tile is thicker due to its format.

In your case, the procedure and the result should have been precisely agreed upon with the contractor: removal of the old tile covering including adhesive, leveling of uneven areas, additional smoothing, if necessary leveling of the screed with self-leveling compound, new tile covering applied in thin or medium bed mortar, and the specification: New tile covering must be flush with the finished floor surface of the hallway. The effort required by the tiler to meet this agreement must be researched in advance and taken into account in their quote. Alternatively, after research, the contractor should clarify if this requirement is not feasible for structural reasons or is only achievable with additional work (such as screed removal).

The local conditions should also, if necessary, be measured to the millimeter accuracy before awarding the contract using a construction laser or pneumatic tube level in order to agree on heights.

A door leaf can usually be shortened by a few centimeters (inches). In older buildings, it often happens that when you install new flooring, there are different floor heights. There are transition strips available to help even this out. Personally, I would probably be more excited about the new bathroom than worrying about such a “minor detail.”

Removing the tiles would probably be disproportionate. Otherwise, you can simply install a new, thicker floor in the hallway as well.

However, the tiler or contractor should have pointed this out beforehand.