Kitchen floor tile missing underlayment

I'm considering buying a property however just looking at it myself I noticed the kitchen floor tile has cracks all throughout the kitchen that run along the edges of the subflooring. I asked about this and apparently the contractor who did the work did not install underlayment prior to laying the tile. I included some pics. Would this cause any foundational issues? Also, is it possible to redo this work without damaging the subflooring? It's on a crawl space. Thanks.

 

Welcome to the forums.
No, this almost has nothing to do with the foundation but certainly would not cause a foundation issue.

Nope, inadequate subflooring is likely part of the cause. If you buy the house, let us know the makeup of the subfloor along with the size, spacing, species and unsupported span of the floor joists and we can walk you through re-doing this correctly.

 

Boy, that's bad. You can see the straight line cracking and intersection of the sheeting underneath.

I agree with Stickshift. The tile work has nothing to do with the foundation. The amount of weight added by the tile is minimal and not enough to put an unusual strain on a foundation. If you are concerned about the foundation it needs to be inspected for signs of cracking, leaning or sagging.

The tile probably did not hurt the subflooring. Probably the biggest issue you will face when re-doing the floor is the buildup of thickness caused by a proper subfloor (if you need to re-do it) and tile underlayment. Best is to remove everything from the room and especially the cabinets. This allows the underlayment and tile to run underneath the dishwasher, fridge and stove so they can be easily moved and removed in the future. Many people go "easy" and just tile up to the cabinets. This most often causes a problem with the dishwasher as it creates a "hole" in the floor where the dishwasher would go. If you tile the dishwasher spot without raising the cabinetry then the top of the dishwasher can hit the counter and hot fit.

 

You might get lucky and have an in floor register, or as other noted a dish washer, pull it up/ remove and see what's under there, I bet you have subfloor only!! The whole floor is going to have to be removed!!

 

Thanks guys. Yeah I confirmed with the realtor and based on what he was told there's nothing but subfloor underneath the tiles. How likely do you guys think that I will have to replace the subfloor after pulling the tiles?

 

If the installer did not put down backer then there he probably didn't do such a great job on anything else.

Mortar is not a flexible material so I'll bet you will find that with the flexing of the sub floor the tiles will just pop up and some scraping of the mortar off the floor is all that is needed.

I pulled up my bathroom tile and was surprised how easy it came up and how clean the tiles were (no back buttering here), I could have easily reused with minimal clean up.

 

I agree with Marq1. I had the opposite situation. Tiles were laid on bare OSB. The thinset stuck to the tiles moreso than the OSB, so we had an entire kitchen floor up and in the trash in 30 minutes with no residue on the OSB. Very poor install.

Just be prepared for what the others have said regarding over sheathing the subflooring, additional 1/4" cbu, etc. It will raise the height of the final floor and possibly make fitting a dishwasher very difficult.