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Hello all new here and just starting to begin tiling the kitchen splashback. We have a double brick home. I have removed the old tiles over the sink. The tiles seemed to come off fairly good, without too much of a mess. The concrete/brick wasnt damaged much at all. My question is, how smooth does the surface have to be before applying new tiles. Do I have to plaster the concrete to get a smooth surface? I would think that the tiles would adhere well to a rough surface, maybe i am wrong. Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

if not too bad.........

and mainly flat, you should be fine. I would go over the surface with a scrapper to remove high points (caused by old adhesive), and fill a few low bits with a bit of tile adhesive

Main thing to remember is if its too bad the tiles will be all over the place.

Yes,UHM is right. If you use a razor stripper, you should be able to take off all the high points. Then fill any large recesses with plaster to level up. Provided the bed of the tile adhesive is level, the tiles will all be flush. The longer the tiling trowel, the more level the bed.

thats good, thanks for the replies. Its not too bad, but there are few high/low spots. Can i just fill the lower spots in with tile adhesive as i tile?
thanks

If you're using tubbed adhesive just bear in mind that you cant use this to fill in holes as it will never set

Cement based adhesives are good for filling in holes up to 15mm or so.

If using rapid setting adhesive, you can tile over it again in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours

is there anything else other than rapid set

whippee, you should be aiming for a flat surface to tile to, the flatter the better the finish will be.

Ideally skimmed, left to cure & primed with an acrylic primer, you should never use adhesive of any type to fill holes.

There are other things you could use like BAL Quickset render, sets in 2 hours & suitable for most substrates but will obviously be premium price.

why should you not use a bit of rapidset to fill a small area ?

Obviously not a full skim, just to even off a bit of tile removal damage, where a full skim would be way OTT.


and


have you used quickset render? Any good?

handyman wrote:why should you not use a bit of rapidset to fill a small area ?

Obviously not a full skim, just to even off a bit of tile removal damage, where a full skim would be way OTT.


and


have you used quickset render? Any good?

Tile adhesive is as said Craig - tile adhesive, there are plenty of alternatives to tile adhesive for filling holes.

Let also look at it this way too - say a good quality 20kg bag of adhesive is what? Anywhere between £10-£20, a good quality 25kg bag of plaster is say £5, work it out!

BAL Quickset render is great stuff easy to use & very quick drying, applied & tiled the day after, unlike plaster having to wait recommended 4 wks before tiling, not sure of cost as I got freebie off the BAL techies on a site visit few weeks back, will probably be pricey though, to be expected from BAL, premium brand - premium pice