Tiling bathroom on floorboards usung only Durabase?

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Hi there.

Is tiling on floorboards on a base of Durabase only sufficient to prevent cracks in the future?

My bathroom fitter will be laying fairly big porcelain tiles on the upstairs floor today. Two days ago when I questioned how he planned to affix them he told me he would glue them straight onto the wooden floorboards. I told him that wouldn't be sturdy enough as the floorboards are both uneven and too springy and asked him to lay at least 15mm ply first. He conceded and yesterday brought over 4mm ply. I told him that was too thin and, as a compromise over thickness, asked if he could use 6mm cement boards instead. He agreed. However, today he brought over Durabase, which I was not happy about. He told me he would lay a thick layer of flexible tiling adhesive on the floorboards, then the Durabase, then more adhesive, then the tiles. I have just discovered, however, that he has actually used Evo-Stik 528 to glue the Durabase to the floorboards.
Will the glue be sufficient to make the base solid enough for tiling?
Will the glue compromise the flexible quality of the Durabase?
Thanks
 
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You mean Evo-Stik 528 as in the contact adhesive?

You'll save yourself an awful lot of grief if you ditch your tiler now rather than have a dispute with him later.

It sounds like he's completely incompetent - 4mm ply, springy floorboards (this needs fixing before you lay cement boards or an isolation mat).

Don't pay him and sack him before he does anything else.
 
Well, in desperation I ended up phoning my local tile shop and they said it was not ideal to use Durabase, but said it should be used with two tiling adhesive layers if it is. Then I phoned Bostik (the makers of Evo-Stik) and they were not sure if it was a good idea or not. So, then I phoned the makers of Durabase and an "expert" in the UK told me that either a contact adhesive or a tiling adhesive would be fine and that it is quite a "forgiving" mat and should cope fine with uneven floorboards. That was an expert's advice.
This all took about 2 hours and by that stage the mat was well and truly stuck down. I felt cornered and pressured into allowing him to continue. So, I will wait and see what happens.
Really angry he didn't use cement boards as agreed though. It put me in a really awkward situation yesterday.
 
sorry to bring bad news, but durabase is a decoupling membrane thats used to stop problems caused by lateral movement, not vertical deflection thats introduced by wooden boards. It needs overboarding with 6mm backerboards or 18mm ply.
 
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They may be covering themselves but I think the makers of cement boards claim that they don't help with deflection - hard to believe it doesn't help a bit though.

I can't see this getting any better and I'd be tempted to bail now when it's just the matting that's been wasted. If you let him continue you could end up with a nightmare. Better a bit of unpleasantness now than small claims court later.
 

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