Spot Bonding Nightmare

As a family we recently decided to update our two outdated bathrooms. We did not have a lot of money to our disposal. We wanted to design a bathroom with our dream terrazzo style porcelain tiles. It came as quite a relief to us that CTM offered affordable and quality bathroom renovations through CTM Installations. On CTM’s website it offers a twelve month workmanship guarantee and tells us that its workmen are trained in the latest techniques when it comes to bathroom renovations and the like. We went to our nearest CTM in Brackenfell where we were offered the services of a person I will refer to a as Mr J throughout this review. He soon arrived at our residence and afterwards sent us a pro forma invoice of R38 000 for labour via the CTM Installation Company. Material such as tiles, grout, tile adhesive, pipes and the like were on us. We were very excited because this meant we could now afford our dream Terrazzo tile which cost R460 per square meter and approximately R22 000 to have both bathrooms fully tiled. A 70% deposit of R28 000 was paid, the rest to be paid upon completion of the job.

This turned out to be a costly move on our part. Early on Mr J had to remove a whole row of tiles on the wall that did not align with the tiles on the floor. We were dissatisfied with chips on the edges of certain tiles. A problem Mr J assured us he could fix with pollyfilla and some clever paint work on his part. We noticed when the abovementioned tiles were removed that there were spots affixed on the back of the tiles, but did not pay any attention to it (as we were not aware of the correct method of applying tile adhesive to the back of tiles).

On Friday the second week Mr J app**** bathroom fittings such as the towel rail and bathroom cabinets to our walls. All of the contact points cracked and chipped and there appeared to be and empty space behind the tile where a ***** was attached for a bathroom mirror.

We quickly realised Mr J had app**** spots to our tiles previously and started researching this method used by Mr J. We became aware of spot tiling – a practice banned in countries such as the US, Canada and the UK. The method only app**** spots of tile adhesive to the back of the tile before attachment to the wall. The proper method requires for tile adhesive to be app**** to the entire wall and back of the tile. It also lessons the work load on the tiler, as he does not have to level the walls and floors of the bathrooms before tiling. The downside of this is that we are now left with empty spaces behind all our tiled surfaces. When knocking on our tiles one can hear a hollow sound emanating from the tile and all the tiles are affected.

We notified CTM Installations in Johannesburg. They sent over two men who were going to survey the damage caused by Mr J. We made them aware Mr J was using spot bonding. To our shock they defended the spot bonding technique (using the technique themselves) and even told us they were working colleagues of Mr J. Our hopes of an objective survey of the damage were dashed. They soon left and almost immediately returned after talking on the phone with someone. They rushed us to tell them which tiles had to be replaced. From our point of view all the tiles have to be replaced. It is impossible to tell how many tiles are bonded with the spotting technique, and it will inevitably cost us more to fix the problem.

Other problems include leaking bathroom basins, uneven floors and a scratched freestanding bathtub that is not even fixed to the floor. Mr J even dumped rubble from other building sites onto our property and we are left with a mountain of debris in our front yard.

After the arrival of the two abovementioned men we were astonished to receive a new increased bill of R16 000 from CTM Installations the Thursday, outlining costs associated with removing and re-installing our toilets, bathtub and replacing tiles. On the previous pro forma invoice we owed R11 000 for a job that has not even been finished. We never gave permission for this new bill to be compiled and no thorough inspection or measurements were performed to survey the damage caused by Mr J.

We are very disappointed by CTM’s Installation Company. We thought that a brand such as CTM would guarantee quality workmanship and ethical building standards. Instead we were left with a spot bonding nightmare. If even the damage surveyors use the spot bonding technique we feel that it is impossible for CTM to fix our problem, because we can’t be certain how many of CTM’s contractors use the ********* technique. We are also very concerned that if we will ever receive our money back, as the CTM Installation Company’s terms and conditions seem to protect itself and the insurance of its workmen does not seem to cover poor workmanship. In the end we are ordinary people who do not understand legal jargon and don’t know where to turn to, to fix a major problem we did not cause.

We will never trust CTM and their installation company ever again, and will rather go the expensive route from now on with a trusted contractor instead of relying on a company who employs contractors who use spot bonding.