vinyl tile installation guide - I'm totally confused!

[ginoT]

Hi, i want to replace cork tiles in my bathroom (on a wooden floor) with glue down vinyl tiles. I'm totally confused as to how to go about it. I get the basic principle of:

1 - clearing the floor and leveling it.
2 - applying the adhesive glue
3 - laying down the tiles.

But the detail of the above is missing to me.

1 - I need to screw down ply first vs direct onto floorboards? And does it need to be perfectly level after?
2 - which glue do i need? spray or any all purpose floor adhesive? if the latter does the trowel pattern make a difference? does it need to be compatible with the glue? I heard it does.
3 - the need for an expansion gap isn't mentioned on the site for the tiles (Pompeii). Do I need one? I was told i didn't but youtube videos from the US say i do..

I'd appreciate any advice! thanks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

For vinyl you ideally need a flat surface to mitigate the tendency of joints in planking to "telegraph" through, so once the old tiles are up you can see how good or bad the floir surface is. A hardwood plywood cladding 12mm thick screwed at 150mm centres (and with all the joints between sheets avoiding any of the joints in the old floor planking) overcomes the telegraphing issue and takes a lot of unevenness out of the floor (if there is any). Assuming an 20mm thick sub- floot, use something like 3 x 30mm countersunk head screws ensuring all the heads are sunk flush. This is to avoid puncturing wires and pipework which has been (wrongly) installed tight to the undersides of the sub-floor. Reduce the screw sizes as needed if the ply or sub-floor are thinner. If there are still dips and hollows in the plywood a self levelling compound is spread across the plywood to take those out as well as to fill any screw head "craters", etc

As a chippy that's about as far as I normally go, so hopefully one of the floorers will fill the rest of the details (which I'd probably get wrong...)

 

[cdbe]

If you haven't already bought them, consider Click LVT instead.

 

[dazlight]

Uplift back to floorboards or chipboard. Make good and flat.
then 6mm or 9mm plywood
Then feather screed on the ply
Then glue down LVT