Tiling on to chipboard flooring

[richardbell81]

Hello,

I'm a newbie here as i'm currently doing up our first house on a budget! I was wondering if you could give me some advice and suggest some suitable BAL products? I'm narrowing it down to BAL as they come highly recommended! Here goes...

I'm about to tile a small bathroom floor (2.2 m2 floor space) with 300x600mm porcelain tiles (10mm thick). The house is a well built victorian mid terrace but we had to remove the old floor boards in the bathroom as some of the boards underneath the bath had rotted due to a leak around the shower end of the bath caused by the previous owners. I replaced all the floor boards with 'Waterproof treated Tongue & Groove Chipboard Flooring (18mm)' and screwed these down to the original joists as they had not been affected by the leak.

Basically, I was wondering what products you would recommend for priming the chipboard then fixing and grouting the tiles? I had planned to tile straight on to the chipboard using 'BAL Single Part Fast Flex' but was not sure what primer to use directly on the chipboard, or what grout would be most suitable?

Firstly, would you recommend using the 'BAL Single Part Fast Flex' for this job and if so what primer and grout would work best with this?

N.B. If possible, I would like to avoid over boarding the chipboard with ply as the height of the toilet soil pipe and sink is now fixed. If you would strongly advise to overboard with ply then please let me know but I could only use a 6mm thick ply at most as anything thicker would cause the toilet outlet and soil pipe to miss align (plus the sink would start to become noticeably low!)

Many thanks in advance & i've attached an image to illustrate!
Rich

[richardbell81]

forgot to add the pic!

[Colour Republic]

6mm ply is to thin. 15mm is the minimum when tiling. But tile backer boards are a better substrate to tile onto anyway and you could use 6mm in those.

Many people do tile on to chipboard and don't have issues but it is not something I would advocate. BAL single part flex is fine although I would check the price if you are getting it from a well known national store. You'll find it online or in other stores at nearly half price! BAL APD is the primer to use with most BAL addys

[richardbell81]

Ok, thanks very much your help, it really is appreciated. I appear to have 2 options...

1. Prime the chipboard, buy BAL Fastflex adhesive and BAL super flexible grout. Tile directly onto the current chipboard floor and hopefully this would do the job, although no guarantee but it would not raise the floor any higher.

OR...

2. Prime the chipbaord, overboard with a 6mm tile backing board (hardiebacker or cement board), then buy BAL Fastflex adhesive and BAL super flexible grout. Again, no guarantee, but i'm getting close. One question with this method. Would the Fastflex adhesive be suitable with the hardi/cement backing board or would a cement based adhesive such as 'bal supercover rapid flex' be more suitable? I already have a 15kg bag of the rapid flex which I was prepared to discard if the fastflex would make a better job.

Rich

[royaloakcarpentry]

I think that all this 'can't tile onto chipboard' must be to do with British Standards (perhaps).

We get onto developments which are 20 years old now and all bathrooms are chipboard floating floors and tiled. All intact and fine.

I must admit to not chancing it though lol.


Refit looks a nice job from here. Whack it in the showcase gallery when complete, mate. be a nice one to see.

[richardbell81]

I know, It would probably be fine if I just tiled straight onto the flooring which is why it pains me to overboard... but i suppose better safe than sorry?

[royaloakcarpentry]

You could always put Schluter Ditra down and tile onto it or Topps tiles do a copy of it by Homlux which they sell by the metre, or meter. One of them lol

You can always use an offset multiquick to overcome any problems of a raised toilet height.

[richardbell81]

ok, thanks. not entirely sure what that is but i'l look into it!

[Colour Republic]

Both the addys you mention are fine for what you want to do.

But one is rapid set. This of course means you can lay the floor and grout in the same day but the downside is it doesn't give you much time to get the floor just right, fine for a pro doing it day in day out but as a DIY project I would suggest you give yourself as much time as possible so go for a standard set addy.

ROC I'm not sure it says that is BS but I know some addy manufacturers will not back their products when used on chipboard

[royaloakcarpentry]

It says not to tile onto chipboard, virtually every place you look.

I normally whack or to be precise, stick plastic ply down.

[Colour Republic]

Not a fan of that product myself which is unfair as I've never personally used but I think the claims made by N&C are exaggerated and seen some failures. Somebody else has just bought out another version of it too but can't remember who now???

[richardbell81]

You could always put Schluter Ditra down and tile onto it or Topps tiles do a copy of it by Homlux which they sell by the metre, or meter. One of them lol

You can always use an offset multiquick to overcome any problems of a raised toilet height.

So I've been looking into this Ditra/Dura Matting and it would seem to be the perfect solution, or am I missing something?

I've looked on the BAL product guide and it says that their 'supercover rapid flex' (which I already have a 15kg bag of) is suitable for uncoupling membrane so can i just bed the matting on to the chipboard with this and then fix the tiles to the matting using the same stuff? Surely this gives me the extra flexability and the extra layer I need without adding much more height. Plus I would only need about 3m square of the stuff so not going to break the bank!

Has anyone used this method before, and would I still need to prime the chipboard before fixing the matting down?

[royaloakcarpentry]

Still need to prime the chipboard flooring with a suitable primer for the adhesive............rarely use BAL myself as I use Nicabond products in the main. I find Nicabond adhesives better and also half the price for trade compared to BAL, from Topps.

Put the adhesive down and comb it with a 3mm notched trowel. Smooth the membrane down and then away you go. Tiles as per normal.


Colour Republic......Never had a problem with plastic ply and have even researched the internet for problems and have never found any posts listed. The failures could be down to bad prep of subfloor. Not stiffening up etc.

[richardbell81]

Called BAL Technical. To summarise what they said...

- Don't prime surface (just ensure there is no wax coating by sanding down)
- Adhesive: Single Part Fastfelx
- Grout: Wide Joint + GT1. additive.

Also said that on such a small floor the movement or deflection should be at a bare minimum.

So, there you have. Thanks again for all your advice!

[richardbell81]

Quick question before I begin tiling... Does anyone know if I am best butter backing the tiles with the adhesive as well as using the solid bed tipped trowel? The porcelain tiles are 600x300 with diagonal ridges underneath.