Crumbling Patio Tiles

It's hard to believe it has been three years since we had our front patio floors done. Way back here, I blogged about our front patio and our decision to lay tile out there. Well, in retrospect in was not the best decision for us. We have had some cracking which was pretty irritating. However, this past Saturday when Tim was out grilling, it literally started crumbling under his feet as he walked.

I don't want to deter anyone from using outdoor tile because I have many a friend who have had a lot of luck with it. For us, it was a waste of money. Our contractor charged us an additional $400 to level the front patio to prevent this very thing from happening. However, now that we can see under the tiles we realize he only leveled areas, not the whole patio. So once that first crack occurred, water was able to get under the tiles and run through the areas he didn't level. This has lead to tiles popping up and cracking all over the place.

While I knew it would probably be a case where we needed to rip everything out and start over, I decided to call the contractor first to have him come out and take a look and see what, if anything, could be done. Conveniently enough, his number is not in service! After trying for a few days to reach him, I decided to get a few estimates on pavers. Originally, we considered pavers out front but thought it would be too expensive. Now that we are paying to have the floors done a second time, we probably should have just went with that from the start.

I got two estimates. Originally we planned to tear out the tile and then just pay someone to install the pavers. However, the first guy who came out gave us a great price to tear out and haul away the existing tile in addition to doing the pavers. We have signed a contract with him and he hopes to get started next week. We have a few small obstacles to work around: we need to raise/trim both our storm door and our gate to get onto the patio. We plan on taking a look at both of those this weekend, with the help of my handy dad, to prepare for next week.

I am hesitant that the pavers may crack as well. I asked the intaller and he is using 1 inch pavers. He is also going to level the floor ( where the original installer missed) and does not think we will have any issues. So I am hopeful it will have a bit more staying power this time around. Fingers crossed for a completed "update" post next week! :)