Fixing Travertine on wooden floor and skimmed plasterboard.

[Legohair]

Morning all,
I'm still part-part time and, erm, I'm frankly feeling out of my depth here. I searched the forum for travertine fitting but cannot find anything about laying upstairs on a modern build 18mm floor, appologies in advance if this a duplicate I've not found.
I've not used any stone tiles before and really feel like I need some pointers.
The tiles are 600 X 400 I think and will be going full height on the walls (currently skimmed plasterboard but I'm trying to change that) and on the floor in an upstairs shower room and family bathroom.
What I have done in the past is secure the floor and walls, fit hardibacker to the floor (using topps two part flex adhesive & screws) and aquapanel to the walls around the shower(s), tank the shower areas, there is water damage to the plasterboard on both showers again so expect to use aquapanel and tanking here too. Prime the walls (bal). Then fix the tiles single part flex (bal) for the walls and two part flex (topps) for the floor. Are my preperations enough or too much? Should I be doing something different altogether? Are my usual adhesives still acceptable for stone? I read that I might need some form of membrane under the tiles for under floor heating but although there is no ufh there are hot and heating pipes in the floor void so is the membrane still required. Any help really appreciated. Sorry for the long post but I just want to get this installation right.
Dan.

 

[White Room]

Travertine are soft and any lateral/deflection movement can cause cracking, a decoupling membrane is required on the floors...

Backskim the tiles with the addy when fixing

Have'nt used the Toppfix stuff so can't comment.

No skimmed walls.

 

[Ian]

If you are using BAL for the walls use the same single part flex for the floor, nothing wrong with toppfix, in my opinion BAL is better. As already mentioned use a decoupler with such soft stone.

 

[doug boardley]

as both posts above from me, also try to work clean and grout prior to sealing This is so the grout can grab the voids in the trav and fill them. Use a good quality impregnating sealer (I use LTP mattstone) to seal.

 

[Scott]

Make sure the adhesive is WHITE! Is the floor deflection free? As said its soft stone so can crack easily. Make sure the floor is solid before you proceed.

I cut mine without water in the machine as I find it far quicker and cleaner and the tiles are not soaked when you cut them. Good luck with it

 

[Legohair]

Thank you all for the help and advice.