www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hello, I hope you lovely people can help me out

I am a DIYer, with decent skills, but not a pro by any stretch.
Have retiled my bathroom from top to toe, and all went perfect.

Now onto the cloakroom, I will be using 10mm thick Porcelain tiles over the whole of the walls. I wish i'd chosen ceramic, but too late now.

However, the strip down has revealed rather dodgy plasterwork. It's an old house, with plaster straight onto bricks (approx 20mm thick).
Approx 70% of the plaster is solid (not totally straight though), approx 30% is dodgy and crumbling and needs taking back to brick.

I am no plasterer, but could cope with repairing the dodgy areas to a suitable surface ready for the tiles. It would take me some time, but maybe a chance to improve my plastering skills.

Alternatively, I could rip out ALL of the plaster from the room, and dry line the walls, I was thinking dot and dab (as the room is small and i don't want to make a wooden framework as the room would get way too small).

I have read on the forum that it's ok to tile directly to plasterboard, but am unsure if this is OK with heavy porcelain tiles and dot and dab plasterboard.

Which method would you advise? Any advice would be great. Thank you in advance.

Michael.

Hi Michael,

welcome to the forum

Personally I would go for the easiest, which will be knocking off the loose plaster and then patch repair it. As you point out it is also good practice for your plastering skills as it will be covered up by the tiles.

Ripping out the existing plaster and drylining would be much more work and mess and then you have to go to the troble of drylining the walls again.

Thank you Ultimatehandyman

Wow, that was a quick reply!

Really appreciate your response, and I will go with your suggestion.

I am working my way through the whole house with various projects, so have a funny feeling I will be spending a lot of time on your site / forum.

Thanks again

Michael

Hi guys, a little more help needed on this subject .....

As per ultimatehandymans suggestion, I chose to try and save as much original plaster as possible, and patch repair. It probably comes as no surprise to hear though, that 'way more' of the original plaster was dodgy than i had thought.

The final result, is that one wall is now patch repaired and ready for tiling, but the rest of the walls all had to be taken back to brick (which wasn't difficult to achieve ... it virtually fell off!)

So, I am now have to prepare the bare brick walls for tiling. They are very uneven due to the age of the house, and don't really want to batten the walls for the plasterboard. I would prefer to dot and dab.

In your experience, will dot and dab plasterboard be able to cope with the weight of Porcelain tiles ok? I was thinking 12mm board.

I looked into 'tile backing boards', but am concerned that these can 'only' be mounted using battens.

Thank you in advance.
Michael

After reading 'a lot' of information on this forum (and a few other googles), I decided that a stud frame would be the best route to go, rather than dot and dab.

Have decided to use plasterboard, rather than tile backing board.

Now, this does leave me with one dilemna that is bothering me a little, and hope you guys can put my mind at rest.

Along one wall, my stud frame (approx 2.3m x 2m) will not be able to rest on the floor (due to 4 pipes running the whole length of the wall at floor level).

The frame will be screwed to the brick wall only. Copius screws and rawlplugs, and a well built frame with 60cm spacing and noggins.

Will the weight be OK, ie frame, plasterboard, porcelain tiles, adhesive and grout.

Cheers

HelterSkelter66 wrote:After reading 'a lot' of information on this forum (and a few other googles), I decided that a stud frame would be the best route to go, rather than dot and dab.

Have decided to use plasterboard, rather than tile backing board.

Now, this does leave me with one dilemna that is bothering me a little, and hope you guys can put my mind at rest.

Along one wall, my stud frame (approx 2.3m x 2m) will not be able to rest on the floor (due to 4 pipes running the whole length of the wall at floor level).

The frame will be screwed to the brick wall only. Copius screws and rawlplugs, and a well built frame with 60cm spacing and noggins.

Will the weight be OK, ie frame, plasterboard, porcelain tiles, adhesive and grout.

Cheers

No idea, but I get the feeling that you want someone to say it will be ok

Rather then building a frame, just fix battens to the walls and make sure they are levelled. Put plenty of battens in for support and it should be fine

Haha, great answer

Yes, 99% already made my mind up that it would be solid and strong .... but needed someone to tell me if i was doing something really stupid. So, its now out with drill and the 2 by 2.

Thanks again ultimate handyman.