DIY Travertine in Bath

[cyberk]

Hello Everyone!

First off, let me thank everyone for all the wonderful knowledge and more importantly, wisdom, on this forum. I am a DIY'er and not even much of that, I work in IT and well, I think that says it all. That being said, I'm hiring a family friend to remodel 2 bathrooms in my home, one of the bathrooms is getting ceramic tile on the floor (not too concerned here) and the other is getting HF Travertine on walls and floors. By the way, I have to mention that I just learned what Honed and Filled travertine was, that's how much of a noob I am...In any case, the gentleman doing the installation has about 20 years of experience in the construction industry, he began as a plumber but has branched out. He works for my father in law who is a General Contractor and Master Plumbing Contractor. Keeping all this into consideration, I figured I should learn as much about stone and tiling as I possibly can to avoid expensive and depressing situations down the line. I have spent about 14 hours browsing forum after forum, thread after thread and I'm glad to say that your forum is the most complete around. So much so that I decided to create an account and spent another 2 hours writing this post, I'm hoping some of you will be willing to lend me a hand and I apologize in advance for my "noobish" ways. I've put together the keypoints of what I've learned through this educational experience and will be very happy to hear any feedback/advice on the subject. Thanks again to everyone!

ps: I have not spell/grammar checked any of this, I wrote this all in notepad because I just upgraded to Windows 8 on my HTPC/Media Center and do not have word/open office installed, apologies again in advance.

pps: I’m also apologising for my blatant use of American units, I understand you all may not be used to the ***-backwards american system but am hoping you will bare with me.

 

[Martyn Leeds]

Hi and welcome,

first thing I would confirm though, is if the Gentleman with 20 yrs in the construction industry can actually tile?
No doubt he can stick a tile on a wall, but can he tile a bathroom to a high standard? has he experience with Travertine?

 

[DHTiling]

Hi And welcome..

Are you governed by code to have a registered tile installer in your home.. might be worth checking that he is certified to work in bathrooms for tiling and tanking regulations if your install is covered by licensed trades in your state.

 

[cyberk]

Martin: My father-in-law, being a plumber contractor has a lot of experience tiling bathrooms, however, from his own admittance, he has very little experience working with stone and from my assumptions, probably less in Travertine, this is the main reason why I'm trying to educate myself on the matter.

David: Unfortunately Florida does not have a tiling category in their licensing structure.

My original post is actually a lot longer but I keep getting errors when posting it as 1 thread. I will paste the remaining parts now. Many thanks to all of you for your advice

 

[cyberk]

18x18 Honed and Filled Travertine, 1/2 inch
Bathroom installation, floor and walls, including bath walls.


1. Prepping the floor, Deflection is a killer: I'm installing on 1/4" hardiebacker (~cement board). The substrate is plywood, not sure on thickness. Not sure whether to thinset the hardiebacker to the ply and then apply RedGard on the hardiebacker. Altnerative is to use a poly moisture barrier undearneath the hardiebacker, screw the hardiebacker to the plywood and then apply RedGard on top. From what I can gather, to reduce deflection, I'm probably better off thinsetting the hardiebacker to the plywood and applying RedGard on top. Suggestions? Is there anything else I can do/should do?

2. Prepping the travertine: I have not found much on this, from what I can gather, I should wipe down and clean each tile prior to installation. Should I let the tile dry well before install? Is this really important? I would think the tile is going to get dirty during installation anyway. I haven't read anything about stone needing to aclimate but I figure this could not hurt either?

3. Installing the travertine: Trowel size is important, consensus seems to be to use a 1/2 x 1/2 trowel size. Back-Butting is a must, thin layer of thinset behind tile.

4. Grouting: DO NOT SEAL BEFORE GROUT. I personally hate grout lines, I would install without grout but this seems to not be possible/a good idea. I'm hoping to use 1/16 grout spacing and am planning on using an Epoxy Grout. From what I've read, grouting with epoxy is more difficult. Again, any suggestions? When grouting, I should grout in small areas, some posts say to get the grout to a "finish" level quality and then move on. Others say to not worry about "finish" level and move on, then come back and finish.

5. Seal after grouting with penetrating sealer. I think 75% of the time I spent reading involved back and forth discussions on whether to seal first or grout first. I think the consensus (win) goes to grout first, seal last. i've settled on grouting first, please tell me I picked right, lol


Concerns...What I don't know?...everything

1. Adhesive, thinset, mortar: To my novice brain, I think this is all the same thing. From reading I've gathered that I should use a flexible adhesive/thinset. I can only guess that your suggestions here will be difficult for me to obtain or are the same products generally available worldwide? Mapei seems to be the most reccomended, I found that one of your large home improvement stores sells the brand. There are a lot of items to choose from, I'm thinking White Powder is the way to go, but what type? There is Dry-Thinset and Polymer-Modified. Can I use the same one for floor and wall?

2. Grout: Same as above, as in point #4, I'm thinking Epoxy, I still have to figure out the brand, looks like Mapei makes this too, this is what I'm looking at:

3. Deflection: I think this is a big one for me, although Construction Code is very strict where I live (Hurricane Central), my house was built during the late part of the housing boom, meaning quality was set aside for quantity. It's a 2 story home and it's plywood on the floor of the second story, the plywood is covered by a 1/2" concrete/cement like coating, I hear (and feel) the creaking when walking in some areas, especially the bathroom.


4. Sealing the travertine, what do i use!? Is hard water really a problem?

References:
Forum would not let me post the list of URLs

 

[cyberk]

I wanted to give you guys URLs that I used for reference but the system did not let me post any URLs, please PM me for list of URLs (especially for some of the products I mention).