Urgent tile help please?!

[indus]

Hi

I'm having two new en suites tiled in a loft conversion that has just been made.
The builders are doing the tiling (I know, I know, never let builders do tiling...)

The tiles are Porcelanosa wall tiles 1000mm x 330mm ceramic.

They are being laid on plywood. The adhesive is 'one flex' as supplied by Porcelanosa as is the bonding agent.

The builder didn't read the instructions on the adhesive properly and rather than using the technique as described on the packet as 'float and butter' he just put huge blobs of adhesive on the tile and pressed them on.

Now they are all up straight but they haven't stuck properly and are loose!

Porcelanosa obviously say that we haven't used the technique as recommended by them.

Not only that but when the builder discovered this in one en suite this morning he ordered his own preferred adhesive and started using that in the the second bathroom (using the same massive blobs technique)

Now in the second bathroom they do seem to have stuck on solidly. So my questions are

1) What is a butter and float technique?

2) The first en suite will need all the tiles stripped off, but shall I let him finish the second en suite since they do seem to have stuck on properly. Or will I have problems later on?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to ask him to abandon the tiling and get a professional tiler in to do it. But shall I let him finish the walls in this second bathroom?

3) On a side note, I was going to put 12mm ply on the floor (just joists at the moment) and tile on top of that. Is that ok?

Thanks for your help.

PS, to be fair to the builder he has done a good job on everything else, perhaps he should have left the tiling to somebody else!

 

[gcol]

1. Imagine buttering a piece of bread while it's in your hand, applying the butter sparingly. (The butter is the adhesive if you hadn't guessed.) Then apply adhesive to the walls as per normal... then A meets B and hey presto. Just a way to ensure that the adhesive gets a proper grip on the tile because it can relatively quickly 'skin' over when on the wall and then it doesn't stick to the tiles properly.

2. If they're stuck they're more than likely gonna be okay. In the first bathroom, did he prime the walls first? Just trying to think why the tiles didn't stick? Assuming the adhesive didn't stick to the walls.

3. Absolutely not. 25mm should be used.

Plenty of tradesmen think they can tile properly (and in fairness they may be able to), what I object to is when they use the arguement "Never had a complaint about tiles falling off". Just because the customer didn't call them back to sort the dodgy tiling doesn't mean that they're happy - just means they don't trust them to do it properly second time round.

 

[indus]

1. Imagine buttering a piece of bread while it's in your hand, applying the butter sparingly. (The butter is the adhesive if you hadn't guessed.) Then apply adhesive to the walls as per normal... then A meets B and hey presto. Just a way to ensure that the adhesive gets a proper grip on the tile because it can relatively quickly 'skin' over when on the wall and then it doesn't stick to the tiles properly.

2. If they're stuck they're more than likely gonna be okay. In the first bathroom, did he prime the walls first? Just trying to think why the tiles didn't stick? Assuming the adhesive didn't stick to the walls.

3. Absolutely not. 25mm should be used.

Plenty of tradesmen think they can tile properly (and in fairness they may be able to), what I object to is when they use the arguement "Never had a complaint about tiles falling off". Just because the customer didn't call them back to sort the dodgy tiling doesn't mean that they're happy - just means they don't trust them to do it properly second time round.

Thanks for your quick response GCol.

The wall was primed with Butech bonding agent.

When I was watching him apply the tiles no adhesive was put on the walls as far as I remember. Each tile got about 6 or 7 big blobs of adhesive on it and then pressed onto the wall so that the blobs spread out, if that makes sense.

Some more questions for you please?

1) Should the plywood have been 'tanked'?

2) In your first answer explaining float and butter you describe 'buttering' the tile and then putting adhesive on the wall in the usual way. Can you please tell me what the usual way is?

3) Do you think the tiles already up but loose are salvageable? ie can they be take off and cleaned and reused?

Thank you so much for your help. I need to get this clear in my head tonight so I have a plan how to tackle the builder tomorrow morning

 

[gcol]

Shouldn't have primed the walls. http://www.ribaproductselector.com/Docs/5/10365/external/COL710365.pdf

1. In a wet area, ideally yes. But to be honest the larger the tiles the less problem you should have. Having said that, see point 2.

2. Normal way means speading the adhesive evenly over the wall with a notched trowel. This gives an almost solid bed of adhesive, or at least minimal areas that are not solid. The fact your 'tiler' has dumped adhesive on the back of the tiles may mean that there are voids behind that could allow easier transfer of water to ply. The other thing with tiling onto ply is you can get the colouring out of the ply staining the grout, not often a problem though.

3. No. It's a cement based adhesive so by now it should be welded to the tiles by now. Be surprised if it isn't. Tiles that size that aren't fixed properly are going to be heavy and dangerous if they fall.

 

[indus]

Shouldn't have primed the walls. http://www.ribaproductselector.com/Docs/5/10365/external/COL710365.pdf

1. In a wet area, ideally yes. But to be honest the larger the tiles the less problem you should have. Having said that, see point 2.

2. Normal way means speading the adhesive evenly over the wall with a notched trowel. This gives an almost solid bed of adhesive, or at least minimal areas that are not solid. The fact your 'tiler' has dumped adhesive on the back of the tiles may mean that there are voids behind that could allow easier transfer of water to ply. The other thing with tiling onto ply is you can get the colouring out of the ply staining the grout, not often a problem though.

3. No. It's a cement based adhesive so by now it should be welded to the tiles by now. Be surprised if it isn't. Tiles that size that aren't fixed properly are going to be heavy and dangerous if they fall.

Gcol

I've understood everything you've said except that bit about the fact that the walls should NOT have been primed. Porcelanosa says that a bonding agent must be used.

Thanks very much for your help and expertise

 

[gcol]

You're right, I misread the instructions I sent you a link to - been drinking a bit. Normally you wouldn't prime the face to be tiled when it's ply and using a cement based adhesive.
Mention you're worried about the tiles falling off to the builder. Where you may come unstuck (sorry) is the fact you supplied the adhesive and the adhesive he's supplied seems to have worked okay. You may have to bite the bullet on this one, thought you would have some recourse if he didn't apply the adhesive as per the instructions.
Keep us informed, I shoule be around for a bit before I get fed up again!

Signing off for the night. Toodle pip.

 

[Maxsys]

1) Should the plywood have been 'tanked'?

Are you saying the walls are Ply? or have i misread

 

[indus]

Thanks GCol.

He applied the bonding as per instructions but the way he has applied the adhesive doesn't follow the float and butter technique.

Maxys, yes it is 12mm ply

Thanks again

 

[Maxsys]

Now you are in trouble, you should never use plywood for walls, it's wood, it will move, it should be plasterboard unskimmed, MR plasterboard unskimmed or tile backer board at least 12mm thick, if in a wet area plasterboard should be tanked.

I would suggest you halt works now, and either get him to do it properly or get someone else to do it properly, the end result will be the tiles will fail.

Tile weight is also critical to the substrate being used, as is the adhesive, there are limits to what each type of substrate can take.

I would suggest you search through the forum and read the tiling sticky, sounds to me like you have a disaster waiting to happen.

Sorry to be so bleak, but the guy has screwed up.

 

[indus]

Now you are in trouble, you should never use plywood for walls, it's wood, it will move, it should be plasterboard unskimmed, MR plasterboard unskimmed or tile backer board at least 12mm thick, if in a wet area plasterboard should be tanked.

I would suggest you halt works now, and either get him to do it properly or get someone else to do it properly, the end result will be the tiles will fail.

Tile weight is also critical to the substrate being used, as is the adhesive, there are limits to what each type of substrate can take.

I would suggest you search through the forum and read the tiling sticky, sounds to me like you have a disaster waiting to happen.

Sorry to be so bleak, but the guy has screwed up.

Max, I get confused by this. I've read quite a few people on here saying that ply is ok if tanked in the wet areas. So is ply definitely a no no for tiling? If it is then why does GCol say to use 25mm of it on the floor??

Thanks for your help

 

[Maxsys]

Ply is OK on the floor, now don't get me wrong i am no expert, but i would say that 12mm ply on the wall is a definite no no, i cannot see that it will support the tiles correctly, and like i say wood moves there is too much chance of it failing due too movement, either plasterboard (tanked in wet areas) or tile backer board, and quality powder adhesive. The weight of the tiles will also indicate which substrate should be used.

 

[Lower]

I used 12mm WBP ply at the end of a bath. Tiled it with travertine.

The ply moved fractionally at a join, despite the join being screwed to a 2x4" frame. That was enough to crack the tiles along the join which then allowed small amount of water ingress which in turn made the crack worse.

Because it was travertine i was able to rake out the crack and fill it with flexible grout. It looked ok because the grout blended in the with filling on the tiles. I suspect it would be an ongoing maintenance job renewing the grout each time there was movement.

We've subsequently sold the house.

Using ply on the wall was a mistake.

 

[indus]

Thanks for your help guys.

Does this mean that plasterboard will never move in the way ply does?

Thanks again

 

[Maxsys]

Plasterboard is more stable than wood, and is a better surface to tile too, however if in wet areas it must be tanked, tile backerboard is inherently better than wood and plasterboard and offers the ideal backing for wet areas but is total overkill on non-wet bathroom walls. The 6mm variety can bu used to overboard floors, subject to the existing floor substrate, but that is a whole other topic, covered widely on this forum.

 

[gcol]

Ply isn't the best wall material to tile onto, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be tiled at all. If that were the case why would they have 'tiling on ply walls' in the instruction in the adhesive mentioned? It's not the work of the Devil, maybe a small troll, but not the Devil. Ideally plasterboard would have been cheaper and better.