When we decided on our current apartment, our family helped us with getting it ready. Ready included replacing most of the tiles in the two bathrooms and a number of tiles in the kitchen. At the time I really didn
Even in the 921 earthquake I didn’t lose any tiles…Not much comfort to you when you’re sticking them back, but maybe your tiler did a bad job.
Not a problem with falling off. The problem is with cracking as the walls twist. We’re only on the third floor but we got hit with a lot of cracked tiles. On the upper levels, they lost tiles and chunks of wall.
When the tiles crack, they explode and shoot sharp slivers around the room. Not real high on my list of approved materials for tremor sensitive areas.
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Same here, been there almost three years - nary a crack. The fact that this seems to be common throughout the residences in the building might be a warning signal. Hope not!
Tiles are an integral part of Taiwanese culture. People who neglect their tiles clearly don’t Love Taiwan enough. Shame on you.
Hot Doughnuts!! Hexuan, you might have nailed it! I’m in the middle of Pan Green country and I’‘ll bet I’ve got Pan Blue tiles. That’s why they’re all ‘cracked.’’
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Apologies to hexuan. My wife just told me that ‘tiles’ more than likely refers to THE game. Makes sense. So much for my lame attempt at humor.
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No probs here with the tiles (old building but new decoration).
[quote=“OutofChaos”]Apologies to hexuan. My wife just told me that ‘tiles’ more than likely refers to THE game. Makes sense. So much for my lame attempt at humor.
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no I doubt it. tiles–the ceramic kind–are as taiwan as oolong tea or o-a-jian. so is neglecting them though 
just look at the facades of some of these houses
the only thing more taiwan than ceramic tile is ground and polished concrete and gravel flooring.
Well I think most people pick up the shards of glass. How expensive are the ceramic tiles?
I love the ceramic tiles in the bathroom - it’s easier to clean than any bathroom I’ve ever had in the west.
When the tiles crack, tiny slivers of the ceramic glaze (glass) fly off. The stuff is hard to spot but they’re as sharp as razors. Both our ‘big’ quakes have hit so that we were not using the bathroom at the time. If it had hit at that moment, it could have been very nasty. A vacuum cleaner was about the best way to clean up the pieces.
As to cost - Thanks for asking. I started checking on that since we didn’t have an itemized bill. What we had done was for two bathrooms, about 7 x 8 feet each and about 8 square feet of kitchen tile. We had all the wall tile in the bathrooms removed and replaced, two new toilets, one new tub, one new tub faucet, damaged tiles replaced in kitchen. Cost = NT $56,000.
The new tiles used in the bathroom are about 10 x 13 inches. I’m now learning that I could have gone with smaller tiles, about 5 x5 inches, but it would have almost doubled the price. 2 x 2 inch tiles and the price triples. One advantage - fewer cracked tiles, if any, when the walls sway. Thing is, all my neighbors still choose to go with the larger tiles, “because it’s cheaper.” :s
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OutofChaos,
Maybe there is something really wrong with your building! I am living in one that used to be public housing and have suffered all the same quakes but none of your major problems. Sure we have cracks but no shards of tile anywhere.
How about putting wallpaper over the tile.