My house was built in Spring/Early Summer 2020. The shower was likely tiled in May/June 2020.

I've recently noticed that some small areas of missing grout have appeared around about a half dozen tiles on the walls in my master shower. They're usually an inch or less in length, with one larger area of a couple inches. There's no telling how long they've been there. I have dark gray grout and thin grout lines, and the dark gaps just look like part of the grout until you get right up on them.

I know new house settling can cause things like baseboard gaps and drywall cracks in corners, but is some grout separation to be similarly expected from settling?

This is also a very large walk-in shower; actually a two person shower, with heads on either end. It's about 8 feet long by 4 feet wide. So it's a larger area of tile than usual, which leads me to believe it's potentially more susceptible to settling in the underlying structure than a smaller shower would be. And the missing grout sections are mostly around tiles near to the vertical edges on the largest/longest wall, where I assume corner studs would be. (Yes, these vertical seams are caulked not grouted, as they should be.)

The tiles themselves aren't loose. And regrouting those few small areas is a trivial task, especially since I already know the brand and color of grout used. I've just never ran into that before, and am not sure if that's normal or indicative of a deeper issue. But then I've never owned a brand new home before either.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK,

Yeah I’ve experienced the same thing in a new home. All of the new homes I’ve lived in eventually cracked within a year. (5)

I mixed up some grout in the last three and re-groutted the cracks. The builders left us a bag of the grout for this reason.

That is more "normal" than you might expect.

Corners have a lot of dynamic force happening and there are several things that can be going on.

If you are not seeing evidence at sheetrock taped seams, trim, door casings, windows or any other places showing evidence, than it may well be a very minor settling of the framing in the shower.

Can also be exacerbated by grout that was not mixed thoroughly, too much water, bad batch of grout, but typically, that is evidenced by loss of grout over the entire grout field.

One of the reasons I had tile guys use epoxy grout in tub/shower, bathroom floors and countertops. It was sort of a "new thing" (it had been around, but tile guys did not like it, because of work time, application requirements and clean up).

But "tile everywhere" and having grout failure issues was a pain to deal with.
(I typically did a lot of the repairs myself, so I got up close to failures, and remediation)

If you do the repairs, there are things you can add that will give some flex, and still match the existing grout, since it is a large area. One thing was adding latex caulk or additives to the water and then to the dry grout so it mixed thoroughly, and never had crack issues with repairs. A small are should be fine, but if the entire field starts loosing grout, consider removing and using epoxy grout for the entire job.

This was in the mid 90s, so my experiences are dated.

Natural gas or propane heat really dry out the air in the winter too so more expanding and contracting of the underlying structure.

I do have natural gas heat. I've never heard that gas was "drier" than electric heat.

I do recognize that houses around here likely have a bit more settling than other parts of the country, from a combination of very hot and humid summers and pretty cold and dry winters. And it probably doesn't help that my house was built during some of the warmer and more humid months.

^^^^ Do you have Red Clay Dirt?

We have that all over around here, and it sucks. It causes a lot of problems.

We have a new house and the same thing happened in our shower. The builder came and used some grout caulk within the first year but it has cracked again. It is a PITA, I don't know what else to do but I sure don't want to do this very year.

How wide are your grout joints?

The sub-floor under the tile may be flexing, or the tile may have separated from the thinset connecting it to the subfloor. Either way, the tiles are probably moving up and down a bit, and chipping out the grout between them as they flex.

Simple repairs like putting new grout in the cracks probably won't make any difference in the long run. The problem will recur.

We had this happen in our upstairs bathroom. After a couple of fruitless repairs to the grout, we removed a tile to see what was wrong and determined the subfloor was moving up and down because it was not anchored properly. We ended up removing a couple of square feet of tile and sub-floor beneath it, and then replacing the subfloor with plywood that was properly attached to the joists and surrounding areas. We had to replace a couple of tiles that got broken in the process.

As a expedient fix, using silicon based caulking of a color that looks like the grout may work for a while, as the silicon will flex with the tile.

Good luck with it!

I’m experiencing same issue now. Would some beige silicone caulk ( to match tile color) be better ? I’m not keen to pay a file and bath guy thousands to redo entire shower which is 20+ square feet of walk in shower big enough for 2

Once again, an issue we are dealing with, and I find it on SIGforum. Is this a great place or what?

WOW, we are facing missing grout in a shower that was installed 17 years ago.

We just had the Grout Doctor come out yesterday. $1,000 and no guarantees. The issue seems to be below what the guy called the water line. WTF?

Oh and, $1,500 for a new shower door.

This is approx. 3.5' x 4.5' of so. It is not a huge shower.

What the hell would it cost to demo and build new?

Sorry for the thread drift.

Following this one.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
^^^^ Do you have Red Clay Dirt?
We have that all over around here, and it sucks. It causes a lot of problems.

No.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
How wide are your grout joints?

1/16 inch.

quote:

Originally posted by RoverSig:
The sub-floor under the tile may be flexing, or the tile may have separated from the thinset connecting it to the subfloor.

This isn't on the floor. It's on the walls. And it's a 1 story house on a slab foundation anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by P-220:
This is approx. 3.5' x 4.5' of so.

What the hell would it cost to demo and build new?

I had a master shower of roughly the same size remodeled in 2019 at my last house, after tearing it out down to the studs/foundation.

Total cost was just about $5050:

$2000 in supplies: Durock, Thinset, Schluter Kerdi system kit, tile, grout, and a new shower head, cartridge, and controls. Plus a pack of Rockwool insulation batting to go behind the walls.

$1800 in labor: Nearly all of which was for the tile guy (who also did the Durock and the Kerdi system waterproofing/tray/curb/drain install), plus about $90 for my plumber to come reroute a section of the supply lines that had been run improperly in front of the studs rather than through them. That was with me doing a little of the non-skilled labor myself, including demoing the previous fiberglass insert and door, installing the insulation between the studs, and installing the new shower head, cartridge, and control lever.

$1250 for the custom shower door, installed.

Before:


Demoed:


$5050 Later:


It could have been done a little cheaper, if I went with a cheaper tile and a non-custom door. Plus labor costs also varied among the bids I got, and I ended up going with one of the more expensive tile guys who had good recommendations from folks I trusted. So a "cheap" remodel might have been doable closer to $3500 or so. (Or much less if I just went with a fiberglass insert instead of tile.)

However, that was 2019. In 2022 you'll have to add +X%, for inflation and Covid-related supply shortage price markup. Plus potentially higher labor rates depending on your location.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
I’m experiencing same issue now. Would some beige silicone caulk ( to match tile color) be better ? I’m not keen to pay a file and bath guy thousands to redo entire shower which is 20+ square feet of walk in shower big enough for 2

Silicon caulk may be a "field expedient" that can look okay and help keep water out for a while. I don't think it is not a cure, but it certainly is cheaper than re-doing the tiles and subfloor [added: or wall board behind a shower].

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RoverSig,

Once its grouted then consider a sealing agent. Grouting alone isn't the current state of the art.

Don't use grout that is over six months old. If you just need a small amount, most tile/flooring places will give you a cup of so in a zzio lock.I keep my extra grout in the freezer.

quote:

Originally posted by Tirod:
Once its grouted then consider a sealing agent. Grouting alone isn't the current state of the art.

Many modern grouts contain sealers, and don't need to be sealed separately.



I'm just going to buy a bag of grout and regrout those gapped sections this weekend. Grout is cheap, and it's such small areas that it shouldn't take long.