Larsen Flexible Standard Set Tile Adhesive - to prime or not to prime? - TilersForums.com

[newbostonian]

Hello everyone,
I'm about to lay some antique 6"x6"x 0.5" ceramic tiles, all clean and dry, onto a very solid bare (untreated) timber boarded living room floor with no damp or water supply of any sort. Having read that this adhesive sometimes fails to adhere to 1:1 diluted acrylic primer, I feel it would be more sensible to do what I've always done in the past and not use a primer to be sure of good adhesion. Every tiling job I've done directly onto the same substrate in the same house in the past has adhered strongly and has been long-lasting, but this particular adhesive is new to me. Does anyone have experience of it on a dry bare wood substrate without primer? Should I use dilute PVA instead?
Thank you.

 

[Dave]

Dry bare wood ?.. is this ply , chipboard , OSB etc

 

[newbostonian]

Dry bare wood ?.. is this ply , chipboard , OSB etc

Hi Dave,
It's very solid 1 inch thick Victorian pine boarding, never treated, no give in the floor anywhere (decided not to replace with ply sheeting as that would have flexed/been less solid than what's already down and can't raise the floor by adding it on top).

 

[Dave]

Hi Dave,
It's very solid 1 inch thick Victorian pine boarding, never treated, no give in the floor anywhere (decided not to replace with ply sheeting as that would have flexed/been less solid than what's already down and can't raise the floor by adding it on top).

Install 6mm Hardibacker boards for a more moisture and thermally stable substrate.

 

[newbostonian]

Install 6mm Hardibacker boards for a more moisture and thermally stable substrate.

Thank you Dave. The exsting floor is so much more solid and non-flexing than a thin laid over board would be so I'll be tiling onto the pine boards directly as I have throughout the house with great success. As the pine is a porous material and I haven't used this particular adhesive before I just wanted to know if this particular adhesive is better without primer or with. Comments in this forum have said the acrylic primer causes it to fail on plaster-like surfaces. I'd use a 1:1 PVA, but perhaps best to try a spare tile on a spare board with and without PVA primer and see what makes the Larsen adhesive adhere best.

 

[Lou]

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