DIY Tiler - 90 sq m of large format porcelaine tiling making me nervous!

[PJPro]

TradeTiler Dave - if you happen to be reading this thread, I performed the sequence of steps as requested. Were you able to look at the details?

 

[Alan.P]

A decoupling membrane such as Dural, Ditra etc would be the way to go with the ufh and screed.

 

[PJPro]

A decoupling membrane such as Dural, Ditra etc would be the way to go with the ufh and screed.

But not the wooden floor....OK. Adds quite a bit to the material cost as the downstairs floor is over half the total area.

 

[Alan.P]

But not the wooden floor....OK. Adds quite a bit to the material cost as the downstairs floor is over half the total area.

Sorry, I'm deffo getting bogged down here, I'll re-read the posts,if you have a mixture of wooden and concrete / screed floors then yes, you'll need a decoupler on the wood and advisable for the screed, and also an expansion joint between and directly over where the substrates meet.

 

[PJPro]

Sorry, I'm deffo getting bogged down here, I'll re-read the posts,if you have a mixture of wooden and concrete / screed floors then yes, you'll need a decoupler on the wood and advisable for the screed, and also an expansion joint between and directly over where the substrates meet.

Apologies Alan.P. I am probably not explaining myself well.

The upstairs bathroom is wood topped out with No More Ply. There are no transitions to any other substrate.

The downstairs, featuring a hall, downstairs cloakroom, dining room and kitchen, is concrete/screed with underfloor heating. There are no transitions to any other substrate.

 

[PJPro]

OK. The tiles arrived today. There's 64 packs each containing 5 tiles. The pallets wouldn't fit through the back gate so I had to lug them through by hand. Man, they're heavy. They're stacked up in the back garden on a couple of pallets and covered with thick plastic sheeting held down with bricks. There were two boxes of tiles which are broken, so I'll have to return them for exchange.

The adhesive is Topps Trader Quick Set White....not BAL. Is this any good? The manager at Topps agreed to swap any bags I wanted to change, so have the option ot upgrade to BAL if I choose....but suspect it would come at a premium. I've been supplied with 20 x 20kg bags.

The grout is BAL Super Flexible Ivory. I've got 5 x 10 kg bags.

I'm going to start laying tiles in the upstairs bathroom later this week so I'd be grateful if someone could answer a few more questions.

Do I need the Dural matting on the floor (chipboard topped with NMP)?

Should I lay the floor tiles first or the walls? I was thinking that I'd prime the walls, fit the waterproof membrane to the walls around the shower and then crack on with the floor.

I am uncetain whether the tiles are covered in transit wax. How can I tell? Do I need to clean the wax off before I lay the tiles or can I do it after I have laid them but before I apply the grout?

 

[White Room]

Do mean Topfix adhesive, never had a problem with it

 

[PJPro]

No, I mean this stuff. Link Toppfix Rapidset Flexible White | Topps Tiles

 

[PJPro]

OK. Here's a few pictures to to illustrate the job. The work is more advanced than the pictures might suggest but, unfortunately, I don't have any later photos which are relevant to this thread.

The first picture shows the downstairs cloakroom. It's 2m x 0.8m and around 2.4m high. Clearly, the photo is taken from above. The second picture shows a part of the hallway which will also be tiled on the floor. The final picture shows the upstairs bathroom. It's at the far end of building and starts directly after the red RSJ. It's about 2m x 3m and 2.4m high and is located above the downstairs cloak so that it can share the same stench pipe.

 

[mz30]

Not had the chance to read all this thread but have perused it enough(i think).

Honestly and truthfully this job is way to big for a diy job(way to big),the money your going to pay on tools alone,would go a way to paying a pro then the astonomical prices topps charge on top of that,i done a job last week were i knocked £15 per bag off what the client was quoted and still made a little.

I think the money you would have saved hiring a pro,would have outweighed the cost of you doing it yourself(imho).

 

[doug boardley]

...but at least if PJ wantsto tackle it himself he's come to the right place for advice

 

[mz30]

wholly agree doug with him comin to the right place,however its hard to explain to a guy next to you the work involved in this project (apprentice etc).never mind explaining it on the internet.

No diy'er in my opinion should take on this sort of project,when the money he has to spend to do the job and the money he has already spent,will outweigh the pitfalls he will hit and regardless of all the info he is given,he will hit problems beyond what he knows .

Pj am not trying to say you shouldnt do the job by any means mate,what am saying is weigh up the consequences,your spending x amount of money on materials ,tools etc,and you have spent time on here asking how you should do said job.

You want a professional finish but given the size of the job and the materials your using,from what i can gather your not confident you can deliver that.

 

[PJPro]

wholly agree doug with him comin to the right place,however its hard to explain to a guy next to you the work involved in this project (apprentice etc).never mind explaining it on the internet.

No diy'er in my opinion should take on this sort of project,when the money he has to spend to do the job and the money he has already spent,will outweigh the pitfalls he will hit and regardless of all the info he is given,he will hit problems beyond what he knows .

Pj am not trying to say you shouldnt do the job by any means mate,what am saying is weigh up the consequences,your spending x amount of money on materials ,tools etc,and you have spent time on here asking how you should do said job.

You want a professional finish but given the size of the job and the materials your using,from what i can gather your not confident you can deliver that.

Well, I'm committed now! Just spent about £800 on tools! mg_smile:

I'm feeling a little more relaxed about the whole thing. What's the worst that can happen (don't answer that)?

The plasterers have started dry lining in the bathroom. They're putting up green board (a moisture resistant plaster board) in the bathroom with normal stuff elsewhere in the house. We had a bit of a debate about using aquaboard instead for the bathroom but somehow ended up back the green board. They were intending to put a skim over the top but I've asked them not to bother...as I'd have to wait however many weeks for it to dry before tiling.

I'm going to buy some BAL APD primer tomorrow and will slap that on all over the walls. I'll also talk to my local tile shop (who supplies the trade) about suitable waterproofing in the vicinity of the shower. My concern is if I use membrane I'll make the wall thicker due to the adhesive used and it'll give me more difficulties later. If I can get away with it, I'd rather use a paint on solution with tape for the corners, etc.

I'm still not sure if I should be using the matting on the bathroom floor...this question has gone unanswered for some reason....so I guess it's either not needed or requires a complex answer. Clearly, the retailer is gonna want to sell me some so I'll have to make a judgement on the spur of the moment, weighing up the costs against the likely impact of not using the matting.

 

[PJPro]

Not had the chance to read all this thread but have perused it enough(i think).

Honestly and truthfully this job is way to big for a diy job(way to big),the money your going to pay on tools alone,would go a way to paying a pro then the astonomical prices topps charge on top of that,i done a job last week were i knocked £15 per bag off what the client was quoted and still made a little.

I think the money you would have saved hiring a pro,would have outweighed the cost of you doing it yourself(imho).

I understand where you're coming from mz30. The pro tiler would have come in at around £3K to do the whole job....and as I've read in many threads on this forum, getting in a pro doesn't necessarily mean a good end result. That said, the guys working on site seem like nice fellas and know their trades, so I suspect the tiler would have been a good guy.....that's why I used the PM that I did....to identify the good tradesmen and avoid the duffers. Sometimes I perceive the work as being a bit, err, sloppy, but most of the time it's just me wanting perfection in areas that don't really matter.

I suspect my attempts at tiling will be far from perfect. But I hope, with the help so generously offered on this forum, I can get the fundamentals right so at worst I end up with a bit of lippage, sloppy cuts and the odd poorly fitting tile rather than tiles falling off the walls or lifting from the floor.

That said, I'm grateful for your concern and welcome your advice.

 

[PJPro]

OK. Some more up to date photos taken this evening

Looking from the kitchen into the dining room. This whole area will be tiled. Hopefully, you can see the door liner on the right. This leads to the hall.

Looking through from the dining room into the hall. To the left is where the stairs are going in. This whole area will be tiled.

The stairs will go here. They're being fitted tomorrow.

Here's another picture of the hall. You'll notice a door liner on the left. This leads into the downstairs cloakroom.

Here's the downstairs cloakroom. The floor and walls will be tiled.

The next few photos show the upstairs bathroom with the green board on some of the walls and the moisture proof chip board on the floor. The NMP has yet to go down on the floor.


I've surveyed the walls with a straight end and it seems they are each flat but there's an angle at the join of the boards i.e. they are not true with each other. I'm going to speak with the plasterer tomorrow but I suspect they would ordinarily take this lack of trueness out with the skim coat. It looks like I'm going to have to take it out with adhesive, possibly applying a scratch coat?

I'll see if he can do better on the remaining bathroom walls.