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Hello,

As per my other threads we are currently re doing our small upstairs bathroom. We have successfully re tiled the bathroom, we decided on mapei products thanks to the advice on this forum!

Next is the floor....

We have re-floored the room with 18mm green moisture chipboard, and now decided we (probably me more than him) really love the starlight quartz tiles from tileHQ.

I have read we can't put tiles straight onto chipboard, so what is better?

Shall we put a cement board like aqua panels down or use ditra matting?

Will the 18mm chipboard support the heavy quartz tiles? these ones:

http://www.tilehq.co.uk/starlight-quart ... tiles.html

thanks in advance for any advice

Louise

i'd say cement boards,
you might still need to overlay with 12mm ply first to stiffen the floor depending on how much it moves / deflects


try the full glass of water in the middle of the room and walk round it,
if the chipboard moves then the glass with tip slightly and spill some water,
you don't want any spilling.

The floor is pretty solid with no movement but i will try the glass method!

Would 6mm aquapanel be ok? How do I seal/attach aquapanel to the chipboard, do I just use screws or adhesive?

They seem extremely cheap for a quartz and resin tile. virtually 50% cheaper than many outlets.

you can tile directly onto a chipboard floor. prime it first with an appropriate primer that compliments the adhesive being used. The adhesive will be a rapid set flexible adhesive suitable for the tile. Flexible grout to finish. Have a look for the sparkle grouts.

We have never experienced issues with tiling direct onto chipboard floors that are suitable to be tiled directly onto. That is not a floating floor system and also free from deflection. With our typical client base if there were problems, we would know about it fairly swiftly even if it were 4 years after job completion.

If you feel safer over boarding in ply then really 15mm minimum is best. Primed back and edges with pva and then primed front face with the tile primer. You could use Ditra, but it is a decoupling membrane for expansion and contraction and not for deflection.

Get yourself an electric tile cutter and put a good quality blade on it. You won't cut those with a manual cutter, even my Sigma doesn't.

we actually have some of the mapei waterproofing kit let, could we use that on the chipboard or not wise?

I was looking into using mapei keraquick adhesive and mapei ultracolour grout, are these suitable?

our friend has an electric wet cutter so hopefully that can do it.

Also we are fitting a bath, is it better to fit bath then tile up to it (then fit bath side panel) or tile whole room then fit bath?

I don't use Marpei but would presume you can. Don't take my presumption though, lol.

Same with the adhesive and grout. I use Bal or nicobond products and so can't comment. The only Marpei product I have used is the ultracolour. Don't use the grey grout it dries patchey and not to a uniform colour. Trawl the internet there are hundreds of posts concerning this product. The other colours are fine, just the grey which has the problem.

You can tile the entire floor. It is usual to fit the bath at the height which allows for the tiles to lip under the bath panel.

I would use cement board set into rapidest adhesive then screwed down. keraquick is a really good adhesive and ultracolour is good too

we grouted the mosaic on Sunday with the black mapei ultracolour grout and its turned out perfect :) not at all blotchy like the grey one can be.

I still cant decide on aquapanel (cement based tile backerboard) or the ply wood? I am rubbish with decisions lol

When you say screw the board down, how many screws? Or is it literally every 30cm all over it?

So I use the keraquick adhesive and latex stuff to fix board to chipboard then tiles to board?

every 30cm all over it if screwing down ply

what if i use the aquapanel?

If securing chipboard floor then every 150mm and I also do backer board every 150mm, when using it.

If you tile to the Tile Trade Association guidelines then the board will be laid onto adhesive. This takes out any minor dips in the floor and leaves for a more rigid finish.

If as you say, your floor is flat and solid then screw it down direct.

Some of the misconceptions about not being able to tile onto certain backgrounds are because they are not part of British Standards. You can't tile onto MDF. We have just spent 400% longer to strip out a bathroom where the walls were done with MDF and tiled onto. A right fippin pig to get them off and the MDF was immaculate underneath. NO water damage at all. The bathroom is at least 6 years old.

Google about tiling direct onto a chipboard floor. There will be loads of information about when you can and can't tile directly onto it.

As a rule I always say don't tile on to chipboard as to me it just isn't worth the risk and I regularly turn down jobs because the customer is adamant that they want me to tile straight to the chipboard. I would rather turn a job down and not run the risk that the floor will fail and I will have to pull the tiles and more than likely the chipboard, re lay the chipboard, prep the floor right, re lay the tiles and not only not get paid for it but have to buy all the materials out of my own pocket.

I have seen too many tiling jobs go bad because the prep is wrong to risk it myself

That is because the prep is wrong, or the construction is wrong. Floating floor, I never chance. Just seen some pics yesterday of a floor ripped up, timbers down for the new floor, my first comment was, your tiling onto that, good luck the timbers are too far apart. I give it a few months.

We have well over a thousand properties we are in and out of over the course of a year, that have chipboard floors and tile. Tiled from the initial development and many are around the 20 year mark in age.

I make you 100% right in turning away work which you are not happy about completing. I do the same, if the floor isn't right. I will give the option of having the floor ripped up and done to my spec before being tiled.

You know what it is like.....you tell the client and do it at their risk. Something happens, there friends comment. Client doesn't say that they were warned but insisted. So you get a bad reputation. i would rather lose a few quid by walking away than have that.

exactly right, you are only as good as your last job and if that job is a failed floor your buggered. I have also ripped out floors that were tile on chipboard and they have been down years without a problem but I have seen vastly more chipboard floors with cracks in the tiles where the joint of the boards is. I say more people should tile to unprepared floors, would mean more work for me!

Just had that with the last bathroom.

main contractor gave me a schedule fot the work.

I walked in and saw the straight crack in grout joint and politely pointed out to the client that the floor was not getting tiled unless I ripped it out back to concrete and did it correctly. After explaining why the crack was there and that I knew exactly how the floor was constructed and where each joint was, he agreed.

That is the main problem, knowing when to and when not to. Too many pushing the luck instead of saying no but we can this way.

I refused to do a large floor a couple of years back for the same contractor. It had that much deflection in it you could have used it as a wrestling ring. Tiling firm came in and said it will be fine due to over 2 tonnes of tile going on it.