tiling floor

[holy85]

Hi All,

I'm looking to re-tile my bathroom walls and this time floor aswell. At the moment there is wooden floor boards. Isit possible to keep the bathroom floor level the same as the room outside?

I'm guessing I will need to remove the wooden floor boards in exchange for ply wood, But I'm not sure what thickness?, or is there any other better solution?

[Inky Pete]

I'm afraid that you're very unlikely to be able to keep the level the same.

Even if you have nice thick floorboards enabling you to replace them with a decent thickness of ply, and if your floor joists are big enough, close enough together, and covering a sufficiently short span to give you a floor which doesn't flex with that thickness of ply, then you've still got the thickness of the tiles and the tile adhesive which will form a step of around 10mm at the threshold.

In reality, you could well have 18mm thick floorboards. If you're taking them out and replacing with ply then you're looking at using 25mm ply - which will give you a total step of around 17mm once the tiles are down. If you're overboarding the floor as it is then you'll probably have to use 12mm ply, and so will have a step of around 22mm.

There are products like tile backer boards and various types of mesh and matting which can reduce to thickness of ply required to some extent, but to be honest I don't think there's any way you're going to squeeze an adequately rigid floor AND your tiles plus adhesive into the thickness currently occupied by just your floorboards.

[holy85]

Thanks for the advise Inky.

Would this type of ply be adequate for the job?

http://www.diy.com/nav/build/timber/she ... mm-9276280

[royaloakcarpentry]

i would say a massive No.

Diy store timber is a pile of 5hite. that is probably sub standard ply that delaminates.

Go to Travis Perkins and get the Far Eastern ply from them. Top grade stuff, will cost a bit more though.