travertine tiles general advice

[Terry7556]

i do some work for pensioner friends of mine and after a kitchen fit they are ready for tiles as a splashback.
with their childrens advice they have bought wickes natural stone tumble travertine wall tiles, they are on a mosiac net, 50mm x50mm, 30.5cm square overall size
they also have bought wickes tile and stone stain protector.its a plastered brick wall they are going on. not fixed these before so can i have some advice, after searching on the site im not sure about one or two things.
1) prime walls with bal prime apd
2)use bal white powdered adhesive
3) do i seal first before laying and is the wickes sealer ok
4) the tiles are pitted, im assume when i grout these pit marks get filled in and are best left like this
5)grout not decided yet but noticed that one or two posters have said ivory grout looks tidy
if you have any advice or opinions it would be welcome

 

[tfish]

Re: pit marks its personal preferance if you fill them or not.

Make the customer aware that pit marks can "appear" in time as the stone degrades and crumbles. shouldnt be to much of a issue with mosiac tiles but some could crumble or lose edges.

 

[Terry7556]

another question about trowel size, 6mm or 3mm?

 

[flameport]

3mm trowel.
The rest will probably be ok.
The Wickes primer will be some other brand in a different pack.

Quite why anyone would want travertine as a kitchen splashback is a mystery. It will get covered in grease which will soak right in and will be impossible to clean.

 

[Terry7556]

result
we took the travertines back to wickes, they gave her the money back and off we went to topps , got some ceramic trav look alikes 10 x10cm
happy days