1st Tiled Floor

[puntoadzs]

Hi all,

Currently upgrading my Kitchen one thing i want to do prior to installing the new units is tile the floor.

There is currently Vinyl tiles down approx 15 years old. I was thinking ripping these up, self leveling (concrete floor beneath) and then tiling is this the correct? I was wondering if i needed to self level but i imagine the old vinyl tiles will leave alot of old glue on the floor beneath when i take them up

Cheers

Adam

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

:welcome: you will need to remove as much /if not all of the glue from THE SCREED under the v-tiles to give a good key between the SLC and screed......

 

[Tile Marble Granite]

u gotta get rid of all that glue prior to tiling

 

[Mike Mike]

I do this for a living. This is what I would do with your floor, and this would be the fastest, least expensive, least messy, most efficient approach. Depending on your access to some of the equipment and materials, you can either follow all these steps, or substitute a step here or there for something manual as required.

(Before I start, you can tile onto vinyl tiles if they are well adhered and you use a suitable adhesive, but let's assume you've set your heart on pulling them up).

1. Remove vinyl tiles (you can rent a machine which will do 15m2 in approx half an hour).
2. Sand the floor with a rotary floor machine (you can rent these) to remove / flatten the glue residue. 15m2 floor will take you 15 minutes.
3. Clear away all the tiles and vacuum the floor. 30 minutes.
4. Prime the floor with suitable acrylic primer. Drying time 30 - 60 minutes.
5. Trowel over a thin coat of SMOOTHING COMPOUND (not self leveling compound). 15m2 floor will take approx 10 minutes. Walkable in 30 minutes, can be sanded in 60 minutes, and tiling commence after 2 hours.

Why SMOOTHING COMPOUND? SLC requires 1.6kg/m2 at 1mm. It is exceedingly difficult to obtain a flat and level floor with SLC at low thicknesses. You need to be pouring it at least 10mm thick and using a spiked roller to aerate it and disperse it to every corner of the floor. If you are inexperienced and try to trowel SLC thinly you tend to end up with nothing but laitance over half the floor (all the aggregates settle in a slurry at the bottom), and lots of uneven bumps, because SLC is too runny to be hard troweled.

@ 10mm a 15m2 floor requires 240kgs of SLC. That's 12 bags.

Smoothing compound has a completely different composition and consistency and can literally be hard trowelled down to zero. An overall covering of 1 - 2mm is very easy to achieve, even if you have never used it before (just be aware you have 10 minutes working time and not one second longer, so don't mix up more than you can use!) A 15m2 room can be easily covered with 1 x 20kg bag. It also dries much faster and as you will have rented the sanding machine, you can wizz that over it to get rid of any trowel marks in the same day. In fact, you could prep the floor by lunchtime, then tile the floor and grout it in the afternoon, depending on the area involved...

Good luck Adam.

 

[swanman]

Well done swedish mike

Fantastic post

 

[puntoadzs]

Thank you for that advise it is much appreciated.

You mentioned possibly tiling over the existing Vinyl floor..is this a feasible option? I am just thinking now that the Viny floor is very solid. What would i require to tile straight onto it?

 

[Mike Mike]

Thank you for that advise it is much appreciated.

You mentioned possibly tiling over the existing Vinyl floor..is this a feasible option? I am just thinking now that the Viny floor is very solid. What would i require to tile straight onto it?

I wondered if you'd spot that . I tile over vinyl sheet all the time, because we use that as a tanking system for wetrooms here. So yes, it can be done.

With 15 year old vinyl tiles like yours you are always running a bit of a gamble, because you don't know what the condition of the substrate under them is, how they were glued (complete coverage or just perimeter), what the condition of the glue is etc.

I would never personally agree to tile over 15 year old vinyl tiles in a customer's house because I could not give a guarantee.

But if this is your own house and you're comfortable with taking a calulated risk then here is what adhesive manufacturer BAL recommend:
Existing vinyl tiles/sheets should be firmly bonded to their base and must be in sound, clean condition.

Any loose tiles should be removed and made good with a leveling compound e.g. BAL ACRYBASE, dependent on underlying substrate.

Remove all traces of grease/polish.

If not tiling with a BAL Porcelbond Plus product, prime with BAL Bond SBR and allow to dry. Fix tiles within 24 hours of priming.

Adhesives they recommend are: BAL Single Part Flexible, BAL RapidSet Flexible, BAL PTB Flexible or BAL Fastflex. For grout they recommend Microcolour Wide Joint Grout.

I did a search on this forum for members who've had bad experiences with tiling onto vinyl and couldn't find any. There was one which implied it was not good as it was easy for him to take the tiles up, but only when prised i.e. the installation had not failed.

http://www.tilersforums.com/tile-adhesive-grout-substrate-preparation/54323-why-you-shouldnt-tile-over-vinyl.html

To be honest, the biggest risk with any glued floor covering is if the glue gets wet or damp, especially from the substrate.
Adhesive manufacturer Mapei state in their Technical Bulletin 010705-TB:
Moisture beneath the sheet vinyl can reemulsify sheet vinyl glues, which can result in separation of the vinyl fom the subfloor. As the moisture level continues to rise, it can cause the entire floor coverings to delaminate, pushing the tile up with it.

They then go on to recommend which of their adhesives are suitable for tiling onto vinyl…