Floor adhesive consistency

[Dave Thornley]

Just started to floor a kitchen with tiles and found adhesive consistency all a bit off. Been years since I tiled a floor but as far as I can recall the adhesive consistancy was shall I say more sloppy. I began by using a Mapei adhesive mixing to correct amounts 5.2L -5.6L per 20kg bag. Heck hard to mix like a thick stodge on using. Loading up the bucket trowel can be inverted 180 deg and does not drop off the trowel. Rang MAPEI who said add more water, so why specify 5.2 to 5.6 litres. Even using at 6 lt per bag looked too thick. Swapped makes of adhesive similar results just not quite as bad. So after all this what I am getting at is why should I have to add at least 10%, preferably 20% more water than suggested to get a workable mix. Watched all the Youtube videos and the consistancy of their mixes look like what I was expecting.
Am I missing something?

 

[Swwils]

Temperature?

 

[Dave Thornley]

Temperature is fine room is always above 10 deg C. Mapei, Bal and Topps have all said adding more is not detrimental to performance.
So am going with how it looks to me. Laid about 5 sqm and all seems fine.

 

[Swwils]

Most generic adhesives are fine to be mixed to just hold notch. The tolerance with a regular cement based product is quite wide (its unusable before it becomes too weak normally) - Otherwise with more specialist one you have to be more careful. (Ardex 7001).

You'll know if you've added too much water, will take forever to set and indicates further problems down the line.

 

[Dave Thornley]

Definitely not adding too much water that is for sure.
Always used to remember if getting atrowel full would slide off just like a brick mortar does/should.