How do I replace a single cracked floor tile?
Getting one tile out without damaging its neighbours or the substrate, and bedding the new one so it sits flush rather than proud.
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Time
- 1 hr 30 min
- Read
- 3 min
- Safety
- warning
Short answer
Rake the grout out all round first, then drill several holes in the middle of the tile and break outwards from the centre towards the edges, never inwards from the edge. Clean the bed back to a flat sound surface, bed the new tile in fresh adhesive, check it flush with a straight edge, and grout after the adhesive has set.
Two things make this job go wrong. Levering at the edge of the tile chips the neighbours, and leaving old adhesive ridges in the bed makes the new tile sit proud. Both are solved by working from the middle outwards and by taking the time to get the bed genuinely flat.
Safety
Breaking out a tile throws sharp fragments at speed. Wear impact-rated eye protection, gloves and, if using power tools, a proper dust mask — cutting or grinding ceramic and porcelain produces respirable crystalline silica, which is a genuine long-term health hazard and needs dust extraction or water suppression rather than just a mask. Cover anything nearby: fragments travel further than you expect.
What you'll need
- safety glasses and gloves
- a grout rake or an oscillating tool with a grout blade
- a drill with a tile bit
- a hammer and a sharp cold chisel or bolster
- a matching replacement tile
- tile adhesive and matching grout
- a short straight edge
Step by step
- Work out why it cracked before you replace it.A single impact crack is bad luck. Cracks in a line across several tiles, cracks at a doorway, or a tile that cracked with no impact all mean the floor beneath is moving. Replacing the tile without addressing that gets you a cracked tile again.
- Find a matching tile first.Check your spares, the original supplier, and the batch number. If nothing matches, decide now whether to take a tile from under an appliance or a cupboard and put the mismatch there instead.
- Rake out the grout all round.Full depth, on all four sides. This isolates the tile so that the forces you are about to apply do not travel into its neighbours. It is the step that protects the rest of the floor.
- Drill the middle of the tile.Several holes in the centre with a tile bit, which gives the tile somewhere to collapse into and relieves the bond from the middle.
- Break outwards from the centre.Chisel from the drilled centre towards the edges, lifting pieces out as they come free. Never start at the edge and lever inwards — that is what chips the adjacent tiles.
- Clean the bed back to flat.Chisel and scrape all the old adhesive off until the substrate is flat and sound. Any ridge left behind holds the new tile proud, and a proud tile in a floor is both ugly and a trip point.
- Check the substrate while it is exposed.Is it sound, dry and stable? A crack in the screed, a movement joint you have tiled over, or a flexing timber deck is the real story, and this is your only chance to see it.
- Bed the new tile with full coverage.Notch adhesive onto the bed, and butter the back of the tile as well. A floor tile needs the adhesive coverage the standard asks for — voids under a floor tile are what makes it sound hollow and crack later.
- Set it flush and check with a straight edge.Lay a short straight edge across the tile and its neighbours in two directions and adjust before the adhesive sets. Use tile spacers or levelling clips to hold the joint width and the height.
- Grout after the adhesive has properly set.Follow the adhesive's stated time — grouting too early disturbs the bed. Match the grout colour, and accept that new grout in an old floor will look slightly different until it has been walked on for a while.
Tips
- Keep the broken pieces. If you cannot source a match, a tile shop or an online matching service can sometimes identify the product from a fragment.
- On a large format tile, drill more holes and take more time. They are heavily bonded and they break unpredictably.
- If the tile is on a timber floor and cracked with no impact, read the guide on tiling onto timber before replacing it — the substrate probably needs work first.
- Where several tiles are cracked in a line, do not replace them one at a time. Find the movement joint or the substrate crack that is causing it first.