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Tiling - Floor preparation

Hi All,

We are in the middle of re tiling our house. We just finished removing the old tiles and now we were left with adhesive / mortar in most areas.

My tiler said we do not have to remove them completely because they are stick really well to the concrete. He will remove the thick ones though. He will also use self leveling and patch the spots that need patching (cant screed as it will raise the floor and block our door opening)

He assured me that this is the right thing to do and wont impact the tiling job.

I am doubtful though so I just want some advise.

Thanks in advance!

Charlie

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Comments

redracer01

Hello @caru

It is sound advice from your tiler. The glue left behind has petrified and has permanently adhered to your cement floor. You could continue knocking it down with a brickies bolster but it would take a lot of work and a lot of time to perfectly flatten it. If the floor is generally level with a few low spots then using self leveling compound will fix the issue without significantly adding height to the floor. This will then provide you with an ideal base to tile.

Cheers

Red

MitchellMc

Hi @caru,

To echo @redracer01's response, if the glue/mortar is sound and not crumbling away, it is fine to tile straight over.

Mitchell

caru

Thank you for the feedback!

It is going well and we are happy with the progress 🙂

caru

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/11667#Comment_11667

Hi All,

The job was finally done about a month ago. Took us a while to clean up, move the furnitures back in and getting rid of the dust!

I would say the job was pretty decent, there are couple of problems here and there such as tiles not being flat and under certain angle, they just dont look as seamless as I would like them to be (is this expected for non rectified tiles with 3mm spacer?)

But i think the biggest problem I believe is some of the tiles are drummy (hollow sound) which we accidentally came across (dropped something on the floor and thought it sounded a bit funny). So we ended up checking every tiles and found out there are about 20 tiles with hollow sound.

My questions are

1. Do tiles with hollow sound need to be replaced? Will they crack eventually?

2. For non rectified tiles with 3mm spacer, is it impossible to achieve seamless look? Especially given that we didnt screed the floor so I was expecting imperfections but didnt know that it would be quite distracting.

Thanks in advance!

MitchellMc

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/68713#Comment_68713

Hi @caru,

Unlike rectified tiles, which give you the illusion of a smaller seamless joint, a non-rectified tile has a radius to its edge and makes the joint seem larger as the grout is lower than the surface of the tile. The tiles not being flat sounds like a separate issue though. You might like to post an image so we can get an idea of how uneven the surface is.

If you are concerned, then you should raise the issue of drummy sounding tiles with the installer. Now directly after installation would be the appropriate time to do so.

If you could provide some examples of the seamless look you were hoping for, then we could let you know if that is achievable with non-rectified tiles. It sounds like your expectations would be closer to what could be achieved with rectified tiles. This is where we normally see the term "seamless" used.

Mitchell

caru

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/97306#Comment_97306

Hi @MitchellMc

I will try to upload some photos for sure. The seamless look I believe is mainly caused by the slight lippage and so perhaps it actually comes down to concrete slab (no screeding no self leveling - based on advise of the installer) which I regretted very much.

Lippage is not really my main concern now - its the drummy tiles that worries me (re-counted them and there are about 50 tiles). not sure fixing them will cause more problems like lippage.

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