Tiling onto new Weyroc floor

[d3matt]

I have a new Weyroc chipboard floor which is very solid. Can I tile straight on to this? It is a small bathroom.

I've never tiled on wood before. I'm new to this forum, but have spent a few nights reading posts in this tiling section and I see the general opinion is to lay plywood down first. If I was to lay this down in this room, it would have to be in strips becuase it is not physically possible to get a sheet of ply into the room due to a very low slopping ceiling (and a door). So if I laid down four strips of ply (approx 2-3ft width), what about the joints? Wouldn't a ply floor with lots of joints be more unstable than the original new Weyroc floor?

Also, putting down ply raises the floor to such as extend that it will cause quite lip at the door way. Outside the bathroom will be carpet onto the same new Weyroc floor. The thickness of the ply that people are recommending seems excessive to me. I seem to remember years ago reading about using 3mm hardwood . I want to do a top quality job, but using such thick ply on what looks to be an already sound solid floor seems so much of an overkill to me and will cause this unwanted height. However, I don't have the experience of tiling on wood, so I will accept your recommendations.

 

[Jasonb]

Ideal solution is to rip out the chipboard and replace with flooring grade ply, a bit of forethought and this could have been done at the time the flooring was laid.

If thats not an option then a minimum of 12mm Ply, preferably 15mm plus screwed at 200mm cts is the way to do it. If you have to cut the ply then lay the strips at right angles to the joists but staggered to the chipboard joints. Also take the door off to get more room to work, it will need to come of for shortening anyway.

3mm HARDBOARD is for laying under lino.

JAson

 

[gcol]

As Jason says, use 12mm ply.
Have you tried finding 15mm ply? - not that easy to come by and in my opinion, is overkill when overboarding.

 

[Jasonb]

My local panel supplier keeps 15mm but I've never used it. They also do the 8x2 sheets of 22mm flooring ply which are what I use when ripping the old boards out

J

 

[gcol]

They also do the 8x2 sheets of 22mm flooring ply which are what I use when ripping the old boards out

J

Yeah, they'd be a good size Jason. Not too heavy to lug about.

 

[d3matt]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not questioning any of the answers, but would like to understand the principles here...

I can understand why you need to overlay a tongue & grove planked floor with ply and I understand that ply doesn't expand/decreased like real timber, so is an ideal platform for tiling. But does chipboard really move that much? When it is made of just woodchips and resin, I would of thought that it would suffer movement less than most forms of wood, being that it is the most unnatural.
Also, if a chipboard is screwed down to the joists, isn't that going to stop movement? Or maybe the opposite - isn't the movement in the joists (probably the largest amount of movement) going to cause pressure on the sheet material screwed to it? If this is the case, why would a ply floor screwed to the joists be ok for tiling?

 

[gcol]

I can see why you would be confused matt. Quite simply, you need to overboard floorboards because not only do they flex, each board can slightly move about independantly to its neighbour. Overboarding therefore is used to make the floor more rigid and limit any localised movement.
Now onto your question about chipboard..... think of your chipboard floor as Weetabix. Now why wouldn't you tile onto Weetabix with an adhesive with water in it?
You show me someone that has successfully tiled a chipboard floor over 12 months ago and still has the tiles fixed firmly and I'll show you a liar.
It is possible to tile onto a properly prepared water resistant chipboard, but you must use a 2 part adhesive such as Bal Flex and that costs plenty.

 

[d3matt]

It is possible to tile onto a properly prepared water resistant chipboard, but you must use a 2 part adhesive such as Bal Flex and that costs plenty.

The Weyroc chipboard has a grey coating on it. Sort of a rubbery type coating. Would it therefore be possibly to tile directly onto a good solid Weyroc floor with an expensive two part flexi adhesive?

 

[gcol]

I don't know your flooring matt, but I would personally advise never to tile onto chipboard of any type with any adhesive, but that's just my opinion. Give the floor manufacturer a call and ask them what the score is regarding the grey stuff. For what's invloved, I'd be more comfortable with replacing with the correct thickness of ply or if possible, overboarding.

 

[Master of None]

I also made the same mistake by laying 22mm MR caberboard after ripping up the rotten chipboard floor in my bathroom and kitchen.
I did consider ripping it up and replacing with 25mm ply after taking advice from gcol, but i had already replaced all the pipework and waste and due to the many popups through my floor and the small size of my house (maneuvering large sheets of ply) I opted to get nomoreply delivered to overlay. This product is 6mm thick is glued and screwed down, is water resistant (not water proof) so if you are laying on chipboard the supplier recommend 2 coats of BAL APD. As you can see from the pics I am not in a position to tell you if this is a good product yet but here is hopin.

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• Master of None
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• Master of None
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PS the screws nomoreply supply are self drilling and in chipboard they tend to chew it up and not pull down enough. I had better success with gyprock screws.

I did a lot of research after discovering my mistake and the general concensus seems to be. don't lay tiles directly on to chipboard. Apart from the grout cracking, tiles and grout are water resistant not water proof, so there is a chance the chipboard will get wet.

There are other manufacturers of similar boards but when you read the instructions, this one seemed more straight forward to me.

see my previouse thread.

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=137090

 

[kinhell]

If you use clear-seal and seal the grout wouldn't that stop any water being absorbed down to the boards? I've not used it myself yet but by all accounts its good stuff.

 

[d3matt]

Master of None, I too am considering using NoMorePly after reading posts on two of the 'trade' tiling forums. It looks an ideal solution as it only raises the floor by 6mm. It seems the product works because of their adhesive, which costs as much as the board.

How much did your NoMorePly cost and where did you get it from?

For those that don't know this product, see www.nomoreply.com
After reading the tiling forums, many tilers like it and don't use ply anymore. Many don't, but you start getting the picture that those that don't haven't actually tried it and still stick to the traditional method of using 18mm ply.

 

[Master of None]

d3matt
The only importer to uk seems to be stonebrokers see
http://nomoreply.co.uk/

£7.99 per 1200x600 sheet
Adhesive £6.89 per 5 sheets approx
Screws £4.99 per 200 at 8 per sheet recommended (conservative if you want to pull sheets down firmly against adhesive, see my comments this post.)
I also purchased the cutter £4.92 worth it.
But beware it cost me around £62 to have it delivered to Edinburgh. It may be cheaper for you.
Expensive if it is "nobetterthanply" however time will tell. I went belt and braces cos if it went wrong in 12 months time my other arf would boot be out considering it has taken me 18 months to get this far. luckily she lets me sleep at her house. God love her.

PS see my other thread above regarding hardibacker v nomporeply. 6mm Hardibacker is available at Toppstilles, cheaper but manufacturers instructions require tile adhesive, tape, screws, more adhesive etc. although the man in tops recon just lots of screws will do the job.

 

[d3matt]

Is was the delivery charges from nomoreply.co.uk that put me off. They wanted £47. I was hoping to find a stockist I could drive to.

How much of their adhesive did you use? I got the impression that the screws are just to hold the board down while the glue set. With their system the glue seems to be the key to its strength. I'm suspecting that you need two tubes of glue per sheet (do glue it to the floor and seal all four edges.

 

[Master of None]

Adhesive £6.89 per 5 sheets approx

see here
http://d36594.u24.jswebconsole.co.u...s_id=9&zenid=9868cbc5a244575032dee27de29346b0

and here
http://www.nomoreply.com/pdf_files/no_more_ply_01.pdf

I'm suspecting that you need two tubes of glue per sheet

And a ladder to climb aboard your tiles