Dot And Dab - Will It Have To Come Up?

[jaycy99]

Hi all,

Just had the bathroom floor tiled - well almost , the builder walked off after a disagreement.

The floor job is 8 square metres of ceramic tiles on a plywood boarded wooden floor. It was primed and I think PVA was used.

The adhesive is Mapei Rapid Set flexible.

The builder left his plumber on his own for the day to do the floor saying to me "He's got 20 years tiling experience, I've only got 4 years. In the day the job was 70% completed - but with no grouting done.

When the builder turned up the next day, the first thing he did was to lift 2 0r 3 of the tiles and they were redone. When I asked what the problem was he said with a shrug of his shoulders "You could blame the tiler, you could blame the cement or maybe something else."

Anyway, I let them get on with it, but the program of work and the electrician about to turn up meant that the floor was still unfinished - about 90% complete now and still with no grout - and the following day they walked off site.

When I was cleaning up I noticed you could still see the plywood between most of the tiles and a corner of one of them was broken.

I had a quick look on the internet to see some tiling being done and read some stuff about good and bad practise etc. Suspecting the adhesive had been applied using the dot and dab method I investigated a bit further. I made some feelers out of wire coat hangers to see that if there were voids under the tiles, how big they might be.

In some places I was able to insert a 4-5 (nearly 2 inches) cm wire along the edges of the tiles and swivel it through 180 degrees without feeling any cement. overall the gaps along the edges of the tiles varied from a cm or so up to this 4-5 cm.

Sorry about the rambling preamble, but my question is this - do I have any other alternative to taking up the whole floor and redoing the lot/!?!

Any and all advice will be gratefully received.

JC

 

[Unused Account 1]

Was the floor levellish once ply was down

 

[J Sid]

Take them up and cover the ply with uncoupling membrane or over board and retile

 

[jimthetiler]

Julian didnt quite finnish his sentence,retile, using a pro tiler

 

[J Sid]

Julian didnt quite finnish his sentence,retile, using a pro tiler

Thankyou

 

[White Room]

I would remove and glue and screw hardie backer boards that if they ceramic or Porcelain...natural stone would need a ditra matting.

 

[StevieBoy]

Sounds like they need to come up really and re-done properly.

I doubt they'll take a lot of getting up by the sounds of it.

 

[On one]

Sounds like one of those jobs that will not take too long to rip out again and do properly

 

[AliGage]

Hi and welcome @jaycy99

I may be mistaken but are you saying the tiles are packed up with a 2" bed/blob?

 

[jaycy99]

Hi and welcome @jaycy99

I may be mistaken but are you saying the tiles are packed up with a 2" bed/blob?

No, no packing just dot and dab.

 

[jaycy99]

Was the floor levellish once ply was down

Hi, there was some talk from the contractor about the level being out and needing building up.

JC

 

[jaycy99]

I would remove and glue and screw hardie backer boards that if they ceramic or Porcelain...natural stone would need a ditra matting.

The ply is screwed every 6 inches - does it need an extra layer?

JC

 

[jaycy99]

Take them up and cover the ply with uncoupling membrane or over board and retile

hi, there's ply screwed down every 6 inches on top of well nailed and screwed down floorboards - is another layer necessary?

JC

 

[J Sid]

hi, there's ply screwed down every 6 inches on top of well nailed and screwed down floorboards - is another layer necessary?

JC

If the ply is screwed and there is no deflection on the floor then I would use an uncoupling membrane, my choice is Ditra, then tile.

 

[StevieBoy]

Are we talking plywood on top of chipboard?

 

[jaycy99]

Are we talking plywood on top of chipboard?

No, it's a Victorian house and its plywood on top of the existing floorboards.

 

[jaycy99]

Hi,
Thanks for all replies so far .

I'm not worried about the underfloor - well screwed down ply on top of well screwed and nailed existing floorboards. It's the fact that the tiles the tiles are not well supported that worries me. So I was asking if there is any possibility at all of rescuing the existing tiling without taking it up.

I did phone Mapei for some advice and they mentioned (but not recommended) the possibility of injecting an epoxy resin type adhesive between the not yet grouted tiles to bridge the gap between the flooring and the back of the tiles. This would at least provide support for all of the tile edges.

If the tiles have to come up and they come up undamaged , is there any easy way to clean them up for reuse?


JC

 

[Old Mod]

For me, if u start injecting products between the tiles you're possibly going to make things worse.
What I mean is that there's still no absolute gaurantee it'll work and resin will definitely make everything unusable again, tiles and substrate (ply)
It's a pretty safe bet that as it is you are going to face continual problems with breaking and lifting tiles.
So personally I think the decision is either do u try and bodge it and hope it lasts.
Or do you just wipe your mouth and put it right and not be bothered by it again!

What is the thickness of the ply?

As far as using the old tiles, it will be possible if they lift without breaking.
You would probably find that u would have to grind the adhesive on the backs off!
It's a nasty, dusty, and labourious job, but can be done.

 

[StevieBoy]

Hi,
Thanks for all replies so far .

I'm not worried about the underfloor - well screwed down ply on top of well screwed and nailed existing floorboards. It's the fact that the tiles the tiles are not well supported that worries me. So I was asking if there is any possibility at all of rescuing the existing tiling without taking it up.

I did phone Mapei for some advice and they mentioned (but not recommended) the possibility of injecting an epoxy resin type adhesive between the not yet grouted tiles to bridge the gap between the flooring and the back of the tiles. This would at least provide support for all of the tile edges.

If the tiles have to come up and they come up undamaged , is there any easy way to clean them up for reuse?


JC

I'm with 3-fall on this one, you don't want to be injecting stuff under the tiles etc, at least if you take them up you will have peace of mind if they are then laid properly.

It would depend how long they have been down as to how easy the adhesive comes off the back of them. If they have been done recently, you may be lucky and be able to remove the adhesive with some elbow grease and a very sharp scraper.

Good Luck!

 

[jaycy99]

Hi all and thanks so far,

Might have been wrong about dot and dab - I've taken up a couple of tiles to get at the broken one and rather than dot and dab it looks like "paste all of the tile except for the edges and corners" if that makes sense.

I don't suppose it makes any difference to the advice so far but here's a couple of pictures.......

Btw, they weren't too difficult to get up and most of the adhesive was left stuck to the floor.

 

[StevieBoy]

No, I think the floor has been pasted and then the tile laid on top because if the tile had been pasted and stuck to the floor, the adhesive would have stuck to the tile not the floor.

Either way, get that adhesive up, prime it with SBR then tile it with 2 part making sure you back skim the tiles.

Then you will be ok.