Tiling Disaster

[gaz2923]

Hi Guys

Over the last two weeks I have been extending the tiling in my bathroom which was previously only part tiled and I had loads of tiles left over from when we had it done.

The tiles are normal ceramic ones and I have used unibond tile and grout

The room itself is an old outhouse with 3 external walls so very cold.

I have been tiling onto the wooden boxing which covers the pipework (mix of cementboard, chipboard and ply) and all wood is covered in emulsion.

The problem is that after 7 days the adhesive has not set. The tiles can be easily pulled off and the adhesive is still soft.

Ideas?

Ta

 

[gaz2923]

anyone?

 

[jctilingservices]

Hi Guys



The tiles are normal ceramic ones and I have used unibond tile and grout

The room itself is an old outhouse with 3 external walls so very cold.

I have been tiling onto the wooden boxing which covers the pipework (mix of cementboard, chipboard and ply) and all wood is covered in emulsion.




never used Unibond tile and grout at all but have heard from the lads that it is carp mate, if its too cold its going to take forever to set, also you should have sanded all the paint off, did you prime wher neccessary ?

can you possibly put a heater of some kind into the bathroom to warm the place up and help the addy to set

you say normal ceramic, what size are they ?



Jimmy

 

[Richard C]

The tiles are normal ceramic ones and I have used unibond tile and grout

Ohh dear, not a good brand choice in itself but tile & grout products are total crap; not fit for purpose IMO.

The room itself is an old outhouse with 3 external walls so very cold.

The adhesive is not setting; as JCT, what size are the tiles?

I have been tiling onto the wooden boxing which covers the pipework (mix of cementboard, chipboard and ply) and all wood is covered in emulsion.

If you tile over chipboard or ply without the correct preparation or using the wrong type of adhesive the tiles will fall off; even then I would never advise tiling over chipboard.

The problem is that after 7 days the adhesive has not set. The tiles can be easily pulled off and the adhesive is still soft.

You’ve used crap adhesive, most probably of the wrong type for your tiles & tiling background. If you tell us what you have, we will tell you what to use & what prep work you need to do. In the meantime your time may be well spent taking them all down & cleaning off before the addy goes off too much.

 

[gaz2923]

thanks for the response

the wood that i am tiling over can be replaced with a different type of wood without too much problem, all i need to know is what type of wood is best to tile over

the tiles are 25 x 20cm

i have bought some unibond adhesive (before i read your responses) and put 3 tiles up tonight to see if that sets better

i have also bought a fan heater and will use this to help the drying process

so what prep work do i need to do and should i use a special adhesive?

 

[Richard C]

I use WBP ply for floors but I would never use ply as a tile base on walls or for boxing in pipes. For pipe boxing in a bathroom, I would use moisture resistant plasterboard or a waterproof tile backer board in wet areas over a timber support frame; for walls in general, MR plasterboard generally or, again, tile backer boards in wet areas.

Although not overly large, I would probably have used a powder cement addy rather than tub redi-mix, depending on the tile base. For walls, I mostly use BAL White Star with Microflex grout on smaller tiles but BAL Rapidset powder adhesive on anything over around 200 x 200mm; there are other excellent equivalent products made by Mapei, Webber, Granfix, Ardex etc. You need to be using a flexibly addy & grout on any type of board material, standard non-flex addy/grout will most likely fail.

With regard to primers, generally these should only be used if the adhesive manufacturer recommends it for the surface your tiling onto & then use an acrylic based primer or SBR bonding agent, never use PVA. Prep work varies depending on the surface/finish but acrylic emulsion or gloss paint can cause problems; it’s usual to either score the surface or use a bonding agent (or both). The drying time of tub mix adhesive is extended in such cases & sometimes it’s better to use a powder adhesive which relies on chemical cure rather than evaporation. This could well be your problem as the addy your using is just not setting behind the tiles.

The emphasis should be on using good quality trade tiling products, the DIY stuff is mostly crap &, personally, I would ditch what you’re currently using as I think you’re on a hiding to nothing with it. We had a very similar thread on the forum a while back with large format tiles; advice given by myself & others at the time was to start again but the OP persevered with it for a week or more but eventually admitted defeat, took them all down, started again & successfully completed tiling the second time around.