We have a lot of experience with installing glass tile and would like to give the following advice for potential consumers who wish to install glass tile:
A) Only choose opaque (NON-translucent) glass tile,
B) Only choose small format tiles, 1”x1” or smaller, and
C) Try to avoid using too much glass tile in a shower (borders and accents are OK).
The translucent, smooth-backed glass tiles that rely on the white thinset setting bed both as a reflective backing and an adhesive can give unwanted “ghosting” effects after the tile has been installed, even when the manufacturer-recommended setting materials have been used. Here are a few photos of the “ghosting” effects in a shower with 4”x8” and 4"x4" translucent smooth-backed glass tile---the very expensive recommended latex-modified thinset was used according to the manufacturer’s directions with full coverage, but this condition occurred weeks later at a large percentage of the shower wall area and did not go away.
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It is also common to see the moisture in the setting bed through translucent, smooth-backed glass tiles near the bottom of shower walls when a shower is used on a consistent basis. It is also common to see the change in the setting bed where the concrete board meets the mud overlay at the shower pan. The homeowners with the shower in the following picture were NOT pleased, to say the least, after they spent as much money as they did (somewhere around $40,000 materials and labor) for the tile in their entire bathroom and had so many problems as a result. They also had the "ghosting" issue on the field tiles as well. Please note that this shower was not installed by us.
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There is a LOT of expansion and contraction that happens with glass tile (especially glass tiles that are 4”x4” and larger), and that expansion is increased in showers where there are a lot of extremes in temperature and humidity on a daily basis. One manufacturer told me on their tech support line (after we had a minor nightmare with a glass tile job) that large format glass tile expands and contracts 300% more than ceramic tile expands. They forgot to mention that important little nugget of information before we started the job, and it was not stated in the instructions. The instructions mentioned consulting an architect for placement of expansion joints, but in 2001, no local architects or engineers knew enough about this new product to consult on it and accept any liability at the time...but I digress. In order to eliminate the constant cracking at many of the field tiles in one particular shower, we had to install soft grout joints (color-matched grout caulk) vertically at every 3 tiles, as well as install ONLY color-matched grout caulk at EVERY grout intersection at the glass chair rail tiles. It took more than a year to learn how to solve the problem by trial-and-error, and getting those callbacks every few months was no fun. That manufacturer no longer makes glass tiles in a 4”x8” size…and they still haven’t provided a picture of a working shower (used on a consistent basis) that has those large glass tiles without the above-mentioned problems.
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We thought that another manufacturer had it all figured out a couple of years ago by installing a backing on their 6x6 glass tiles, but we still had recurring problems with cracking at changes in plane as well as around plumbing fixtures. We left sufficient space around the pipes and valves for expansion, but the plumbers would trim the fixtures out flush with the tile surface (as they normally do), and the glass tile expanded against the outer trim, causing it to crack. There were some other gut-wrenching grout haze problems with the porous surface of that “new” glass tile, but I'm getting off on a tangent again…the problems got solved, but it took a lot of head scratching and experimentation. To any poor souls who have a problem with grout haze on porous glass tile, ZEP Grout Cleaner and Whitener takes it off, and the manufacturer’s recommended cleaners do not.
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So, are there any happy endings?
Yes there are plenty of happy homeowners that live a blissful existence with their glass tile. They all have a few things in common----
A) They chose glass tiles that were opaque,
B) Those glass tiles were smaller than 1”x1”, and
C) They didn’t use too much glass tile in a shower.
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