Damaged tiles (holes & cracks): Repair with "repair kit"?

Hello everyone,

after many years of use, there are some signs of wear on the tiles in our current rental apartment. There are small chips/holes here and there caused by dropped objects. In part, there are also old drill holes in the walls and even small cracks in the wall tiles in the bathroom at two spots (unclear origin).

It is clear: if it is to be done properly, the tiles would have to be replaced. However, I have also seen so-called "tile repair kits" (for example on Amazon, just search for "Fliesen reparieren"), which sometimes have quite positive reviews. These mostly consist of wax that you melt with a sort of soldering iron and fill into the holes. The idea is that I could reasonably fix the problems with that without having to replace the tiles.

Does anyone have experience with these kits? Are there any other options besides tile replacement? There must surely be something a bit more professional than these €20 cheap kits...

Best regards Malte

That doesn't hold, a professional company did it for friends through the insurance. After 1 year the tiles were replaced.

Hello Malte.
Short answer to your question(s):
You live in a rental apartment. The wall or floor tiles you mentioned are firmly attached to the substrate, meaning: glued.
This means that you should not make any changes to these objects because anything you do would legally be considered a form of property damage.
Sure, I am not a lawyer myself, but due to my professional activity, I come into contact with these issues very often.
Wear and tear and unavoidable deterioration resulting from proper contractual use are covered by the monthly rent paid. And cracks in tiles mostly result from stresses in the substrate or improper installation. You as a tenant have nothing to do with either.
Repair kits for ceramic or mineral surfaces that are offered are okay. But as a layperson, it is impossible to use them as advertised. The colored hard wax sticks only remain permanently on tile surfaces if the substrate has been properly prepared. Simply "rubbing them in" is possible, but the success is not permanent with this approach.
I myself had to learn this technique, especially mixing colors to match with the addition of heat.
Therefore my advice: a tenant must not make changes to fixed building components of the rented property!
Regards: KlaRa

Hello KlaRa and tomtom,

thank you very much for your feedback. In fact, I simply have the fear that when moving out, the landlord will try to shift the issue onto us and that there will be a dispute. A Google search did not really help me either, because what constitutes "contractual use" and what does not does not seem to be really clear. Therefore, the idea was whether the problems could be resolved by ourselves.

As I suspected, this does not seem to be permanently the case with the offered sets. We will have to see whether we "just let it come to that" or take further action here.

Best regards Malte

I have already "repaired" tiles with such a set - however, they were located under a spiral staircase and are not walked on. Visually, the cracks have completely disappeared. In a rental apartment, I would keep my hands off it - in the end, you will only make it worse. (I once had to scrape out acrylic in our rented apartment that the former tenant had spread on the baseboards of the parquet floor out of fear of cockroaches... yeah....)

Another thought; maybe also just for the future: If you drop something and thereby basically damage the landlord's tiles, your personal liability insurance will cover the damage, right? Therefore, in the future, report such things to the insurance immediately.