Advice on large area tiling - movement joints and back buttering .

[Davesax]

Hi guys
Im tiling a couple of big jobs soon , a 95 and a 200 meter . Im in Australia bit the aus site is very low on traffic , so thought i could ask here to help a fellow pommie out .
Ive a couple of questiOns , one is on movement joints- do you follow the standards - where in the floor do you put one and do you make sure the joint is free of adhesive and grout ?
The other question is about back buttering floor tiles - do you always do this regardless of tile type ?
Any help is really appreciated , thanks and g'day
Dave

 

[peteablard]

Hi Dave, without knowing the layout of the floor is difficult to say exactly where I'd put them. I do a lot of large commercial floors and quite often there are expansions in the substrate that have to be mirrored in the tiles. Some contractors I work for specify an expansion joint every 6 metres in each direction and some say 7 or 8. I think British standard is actually slightly higher than this though. If there aren't expansions in the substrate to follow then I'd personally split the floors into even bays either in half, quarters, sixths etc....
i'd always run an expansion if there was a change of substrate too like screed/concrete to wood.
with regards to the tiles I always back skim them to fill in any small voids in the tile

 

[Davesax]

Thanks pete i appreciate that ,

 

[swanman]

G- day mate

 

[Perry]

i think it was 5.4 mtrs i used to put them every 10 tiles 60x60 on the shop floors make sure the joint is clear from adhesive always back sim unless using PTB