Hi All, I urgently need some advice and not sure where to turn.
We are having some major renovations in our house which includes an large open area 15m x 10m which would include the kitchen, living and dining room. The whole house (apart from the loft conversion) would be fitted with a wet UFH system. Its worth mentioning that the vast majority of the walls are being reconfigured/moved and all of the flooring is being removed.
The house is on a hill and the floors are all suspended floors.
When we fitted the kitchen that was in for the last 13 years, we realised that there was so much deflection on the floors when anyone bounced up/down on them. This was not rectified or improved much even when we buttoned (?) (sorry not sure of the correct terminology) the beams with cross pieces of wood and an 18mm plywood top. So we removed it all and started to support the beams with large pieces of timbre vertically down to the floor below. This improved the deflection massively but it was done by myself so not the most professional job out there. So we were left with the beams supported by the vertical beams at every mid-section of a large span and then the beams with the insulation board. Then the pipes were clipped to that and we then poured dry mix onto the that level with the beams. On top of the beams we fitted 18mm treated plywood and on top of that we fitted the porcelain floor using flexible Mapai adhesive and grout. (this was done by a tiler obviously not us)
Worth mentioning that the tiles were quite cheap 30x60cm.
To cut a long story short, 13 years later we have some slight movement in s couple of tiles (where you step on it and you can feel it) but nothing major. None have popped out or had to be replaced. We do however have 2 or 3 cracked tiles. Mostly due to kids dropping utensils or other stuff on them.
I would like to prepare myself with some advice before talking to the plumber and tiler on what is best practices these days. I obviously want the builders to spend some time properly supporting the floor throughout.
We have our hopes set on these amazing 120x240 porcelain (10mm thick) tiles. But, if you guys think im asking for trouble by going that route, we would consider 120x120 tiles although rectangle would look much better in that space.
So my questions are:
1. would you advise against such large format tiles if the floor is properly supported?
2. Do people still use dry mix to cover the pipes? We loved our UFH as even when it was off it was heating up the house due to heat retention. I just don’t see the heatplates that the plumbers seem to be recommending these days doing the same?
3. Can someone advise on how the layers should be set up from the ground up? I read around and saw that Ditramat can help with horizontal deflection (assuming due to expansion?) but does nothing for deflection? Is there anything else we should consider?
Apologies for the long post. Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.
We are having some major renovations in our house which includes an large open area 15m x 10m which would include the kitchen, living and dining room. The whole house (apart from the loft conversion) would be fitted with a wet UFH system. Its worth mentioning that the vast majority of the walls are being reconfigured/moved and all of the flooring is being removed.
The house is on a hill and the floors are all suspended floors.
When we fitted the kitchen that was in for the last 13 years, we realised that there was so much deflection on the floors when anyone bounced up/down on them. This was not rectified or improved much even when we buttoned (?) (sorry not sure of the correct terminology) the beams with cross pieces of wood and an 18mm plywood top. So we removed it all and started to support the beams with large pieces of timbre vertically down to the floor below. This improved the deflection massively but it was done by myself so not the most professional job out there. So we were left with the beams supported by the vertical beams at every mid-section of a large span and then the beams with the insulation board. Then the pipes were clipped to that and we then poured dry mix onto the that level with the beams. On top of the beams we fitted 18mm treated plywood and on top of that we fitted the porcelain floor using flexible Mapai adhesive and grout. (this was done by a tiler obviously not us)
Worth mentioning that the tiles were quite cheap 30x60cm.
To cut a long story short, 13 years later we have some slight movement in s couple of tiles (where you step on it and you can feel it) but nothing major. None have popped out or had to be replaced. We do however have 2 or 3 cracked tiles. Mostly due to kids dropping utensils or other stuff on them.
I would like to prepare myself with some advice before talking to the plumber and tiler on what is best practices these days. I obviously want the builders to spend some time properly supporting the floor throughout.
We have our hopes set on these amazing 120x240 porcelain (10mm thick) tiles. But, if you guys think im asking for trouble by going that route, we would consider 120x120 tiles although rectangle would look much better in that space.
So my questions are:
1. would you advise against such large format tiles if the floor is properly supported?
2. Do people still use dry mix to cover the pipes? We loved our UFH as even when it was off it was heating up the house due to heat retention. I just don’t see the heatplates that the plumbers seem to be recommending these days doing the same?
3. Can someone advise on how the layers should be set up from the ground up? I read around and saw that Ditramat can help with horizontal deflection (assuming due to expansion?) but does nothing for deflection? Is there anything else we should consider?
Apologies for the long post. Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.
