Advice for using Mapei please.

[richiep]

Hi all,

I'll shortly be tiling a hall and kitchen floor with 300x300 ceramic tiles. Hall floor has secure vinyl tiles over concrete, the kitchen has had these removed so just concrete. I'm by no means an experienced tiler and have only used Bal products before, however, i notice i can get Mapei products for half the price.

Having not used Mapei products before, could anyone advise a suitable floor adhesive to use? Also a grout? Do i need to prime floors? The customer has sand/beige coloured tiles and wants a beige grout too. I did try to advise her to have a darker grout for the floor but she wants beige. Should i use a white adhesive as her grout will be beige?

Also, there seems to be Mapei products in B&Q called buildfix, are these good products?

All advice is welcome, cheers,

Richie

 

[grumpygrouter]

Mapei make excellent products and I use them myself where possible.

I would try and get the vinyl tiles removed first if you can as you can can then use Keraquick adhsesive all the way through, otherwise you may need to use Latexplus admix over the vinyl section. This gives better adhesion to the vinyl but also makes the adhesive stick much better to everything else too, like your trowel clothes and hands!! Yes, white adhesive with light colour (non grey) grout
Mapei also do Ultracolor Plus grout in many colours and with matching silicone. Try and get hold of a grout sample box if you can. This is actual grout in a display setting, not just a colour chart so the colours are what you are actually going to be using, not some near facsimile you get with a chart.
Buildfix would be fine but Mapie from a proper tile retailer with a trade discount would be considerably cheaper.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

As Grumps above, for me

 

[richiep]

Mapei make excellent products and I use them myself where possible.

I would try and get the vinyl tiles removed first if you can as you can can then use Keraquick adhsesive all the way through, otherwise you may need to use Latexplus admix over the vinyl section. This gives better adhesion to the vinyl but also makes the adhesive stick much better to everything else too, like your trowel clothes and hands!! Yes, white adhesive with light colour (non grey) grout
Mapei also do Ultracolor Plus grout in many colours and with matching silicone. Try and get hold of a grout sample box if you can. This is actual grout in a display setting, not just a colour chart so the colours are what you are actually going to be using, not some near facsimile you get with a chart.
Buildfix would be fine but Mapie from a proper tile retailer with a trade discount would be considerably cheaper.

Thanks Grumpy, appreciate the advice.Been on holiday so sorry for delay in replying.

 

[Gall.B]

Going to the wrong supplier if bal is twice the price of mapei. When using Mapei grout make sure to mix as per instructions totaly diffrent from bal grout to use and mix.