Do you butter back of tiles

[robbbin]

Friend of mine has had is bathroom walls tiled, large format 50*30 problem was one fell off luckely for him not in the bath or even worse fell on someone when I tapped them they sound hollow, my guess is the tiler only combed the wall. I told him if 1 or 2 come off easily they really should all come off. Point being you should always butter back of large tile do you agree guys

 

[Fekin]

Sounds like the tiler just hasn't got good coverage on the walls to start with if they are sounding hollow, but for large wall tiles, and floor too then yeah I'd always back butter them, ie, comb the walls as normal then a skim on the tile too.

 

[medlar]

comb the wall or floor then back butter the tile.

 

[enduro]

Depends what size trowel you use, most people use 6mm, i prefer 8mm or if tiles are really bad 10mm on walls. What you should do when fixing is every now and then is fix a tile then remove it and see what coverage you have on the back of the tile, this s a good indication that you could be using the wrong trowel if you havent good a good coveage on the tiles.

 

[cornish_crofter]

Or the tiles could be warped and there is no coverage in the middle of the tile. This happened to me with 325x 250mm tiles. I found that I was offering the tile to the wall and removing them to check for coverage. The top and the bottom on a large number of tiles had made contact whereas the middle had not. I then had to backbutter the middle of the tile in order for full contact to be achieved.

 

[burncross]

like enduro says, would be best to use a 8mm or 10mm trowel and just spread the walls on large format tiles.

 

[cornish_crofter]

like enduro says, would be best to use a 8mm or 10mm trowel and just spread the walls on large format tiles.

That's what I tried to do, and it worked well with the better tiles. It was just the crooked tiles that I had problems with.

 

[Alberta Stone]

Aren't crooked and warped tiles a joy???:santa_cheesy:
As enduro said if you increase the notch size you get better coverage.
Sometimes people will use a notch that is too low a profile or they mix their mud too stiff.
You do have to lift your tiles occasionally to insure you are getting the right results.
Backbuttering is a good technique.

 

[cornish_crofter]

I find that when using powdered adhesive, if you get the mix right then you can really make the job easier with larger tiles using a 8 or 10mm notch or round notch trowel. If you're at all concerned check each tile as you go.

 

[White Room]

I like to back skim just to make sure