Tiling Help

[rossbarclay]

haha If I knew mroe about it I would have a go at him! I just feel gutted as I spent a long time tiling the floor and it looks great now. I just hope it lasts! The room is relatively small (5x9 ft) so I am hoping I have no issues. The tiles seem well stuck done and no signs of tiles lifting yet, although it's only been a couple of days! If there are problems with tiles lifting and cracking when should this happen (days, weeks, months)? Or is it how long it a piece of string?

[Colour Republic]

How long is a piece of string I'm afraid

[royaloakcarpentry]

British Standards are there as a minimum and this has been laid down by experience, research etc into what will suffice for the task. It doesn't mean a lesser standard will always fail.

15mm ply as a minimum. Safe bet, belt and braces that there will be no call back 6 months down the line. It isn't dealing with major flex issues though. A tradesmen has to deal with those by strenghtening the joists. It will cope with taking up some of the flex, just as a certain tile weight will.

3mm hardboard, good bet it will fail. I have refurbed bathrooms with everything in it that shouldn't be used andf they have been fine. OSB, hardboard, mdf, backing plaster. I have also had to refurb bathrooms less than a year old with these materials in them!

I have seen a 1.2MX.8M floor that I had to rip out after less than 1 year! Too much flex. It only had a toilet in it.

[rossbarclay]

The floor has very little movement as I removed all the nails with a nail bar and used a 50mm deck screw to secure the boards to ensure there was next to no movement. then used the 6mm ply (secured with 17mm screw) as suggested and tiled straight onto that with cement based adhesive. I did buy the good ply as I phoned round until I found it. All I can do is hope and learn from this for next time!

[royaloakcarpentry]

You may be fine, don't panic unless you have to.

I refused to tile a floor a couple of years ago because there was that much flex you could trampoline on it.

The contractor got another firm in for a second opinion and they tiled it saying the 2+ Tonnes of tile would take out any flex.

That floor is still fine.

However, what is happening to the structure supporting it all! The joists which were undersized/incorrectly spaced to begin with are having to cope with all that extra weight.

A 'tiler' wouldn't even think about that unless he was properly trained in practice and theory.

[rossbarclay]

Hopefully I am. I did the glass of water trick as advised on here and the glass barely moved let alone splashed water (and I'm 6ft2 and weigh about 15 st).

My main concern now is the adhesive being non flex, but as you say all I can do is hope and deal with any problems as they arise1 Fingers crossed