Wobbly tiles?

[Kebabs]

I wonder if someone could give me any ideas / help??

We have completely gutted our bathroom at the moment, and we're trying to retile the walls, we have tiled two walls without a problem, one is an interior wall and one an exterior wall. They were also the two walls which aren't going to be near any water.

The other two walls are going to have a shower bath onto them. The external wall was very bumpy after removing the existing tiles, and as neither of us are very good at plastering, we decided to batten the walls with marine ply (waterproof board) and we have that on the two walls, and its straight in all directions (checked with the spirit level). We coated the boards with a waterproof protector (Thompsons), as an added layer before the tiles.

But we are struggling with the tiling. We tiled the boarded walls last weekend, we put up a batten and tiled three tiles above it, and it was fine, on the following day, we got up and all the tiles had "popped" or were loose, so we had to remove them all, we removed all the adhesive and then left the walls to breathe for a week, in case the waterproof coating we put on hadn't dried!

We tiled again yesterday, again three tiles above the batten. The tiles on the board on the internal wall, seem to be OK and are fairly stable this morning, but on the other wall (external), they've popped again and were wobbly to the touch. We've had to remove them all before coming to work this morning, but we're now running out of ideas of how to get the tiles to fix to the wall and I wondered if anyone could help?

I'm sorry this is so long, but I was trying to think about everything we've done. We're using waterproof adhesive and grout.

Thank you in advance
Donna

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

There is a sticky at the top of this tiling page that a guy (gcol) has put some really good advice on tiling.

I suggest you have a good read through and then post again to clarify any queries that you may still have.

 

[Kebabs]

Thank you for your reply, I must admit I had looked that and all the how too's before I posted and I couldn't find anything that related to the problems that we're having (as far as I could see).

The main problem I'm having is the tiles I'm tiling onto the marine ply keep "popping" out of line and the adhesive isn't sticking, I'm now going to have to tile the wall for a third time, and I wondered if there was anything else I could do?

Thanks in advance for any help?

 

[toptec]

Donna

What size are your tiles and what adhesive are you usung?

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

I suggest that the waterproofing agent is not suitable for the tiling adhesive, my understanding of Thompsons waterproofing agent is at works a bit like teflon which will not allow water to stick to it (or much else by the sound of it)

You need a special adhesive for wood, not just a standard waterproof adhesive, as wood expands and contracts at a different rate to the tiles the adhesive and grout it needs a degree of flexibility.

I would replace the ply with plasterboard and then use a tanking system (a waterproof lining) and then tile over the top of that. At the least I would use aquapanel or similar (this is a water resistant plasterboard)

Most important would be to make sure that what you prime/treat the walls/surfaces you are going to tile on is compatable with the adhesive and grout that you use.

Details of tanking system here

http://www.bal-adhesives.co.uk/bal/bal_products/wp1_tnk.asp

Bal also have a good range of adhesives and suitable primers for most surfaces.

I am not a pro tiler and I am sure that you will get better more detailed advice later.

 

[Kebabs]

Thank you for your replies.

Toptec, I think our tiles are about 8 by 10 inches?

Bilioustrumpstaine, that makes a lot of sense about the thompsons acting as a teflon barrier, especially as the wall we're having real problems with has had two coats, so we might try replacing the boards on that wall (or turning them over - got to save some money somewhere!)

Looks like we're in for another weekend of tiling! Hopefully it will be third time lucky!

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

Thompsons have a range of products but a common one is the water repellant.

Check with the manufacturer of your adhesive to see if you can use it on wood, if you can, which is the best way to prepare the wood.


I advise that you give these guys a call and get the right information.

http://www.bal-adhesives.co.uk/bal/technical.asp

 

[Kebabs]

Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it.