Under what circumstance would a builder use an expansion strip in the
concrete pad through the middle of a house? Reason for the question is I
have floor tile coming loose over and around a joint and this could be the
cause of it, The house is about 7 years old.
TIA

The normal problem is that residential floors typically have no
joints or expansion. Concrete cannot much larger than 144 sq ft
without cracking. Under carpet this is not a problem. As long as
the cracks are random and don't suffer from differential
settlement, they go unnoticed. You never indicated what type of
tile, I assume ceramic or stone. What often happens, the floor
man uses some floor stone over the crack and installs the tile.
When the floor moves, it can pop the floor stone loose. It costs
more money to do it right. Ceramic should have an isolation sheet
over cracks to try to keep them from transferring into the finish
tile, but even here there are no guarantees. The best approach
would be to install a joint in the finish tile directly over the
concrete crack. This usually does not work well because the
random crack in the slab is not true and people don't want a
wandering joint in the finish tile.

You will find a great deal of good, sound, technical information
he
http://www.johnbridge.com/tile%20letter.htm Especially read the
section about "kitchen floors" even if yours is not in the
kitchen.

(top posted for your convenience)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"Charlie" wrote in message
...
Under what circumstance would a builder use an expansion strip
in the
concrete pad through the middle of a house? Reason for the
question is I
have floor tile coming loose over and around a joint and this
could be the
cause of it, The house is about 7 years old.
TIA

"Charlie" wrote in message
...
Under what circumstance would a builder use an expansion strip in the
concrete pad through the middle of a house? Reason for the question is I
have floor tile coming loose over and around a joint and this could be the
cause of it, The house is about 7 years old.
TIA


There are a ton of reasons for a control/expansion joint in concrete. Pretty
rare around where I live for residential construction.

With out more information and inspection all that I could provide is more
questions

Could be a bad install job.