Help - Tiles falling off

[Pastiemac]

Hi, Hope someone can give me some good advice. We bought 32 x45 cm ceramic tiles for our shower room and asked for appropriate adhesive and grout to fix to green bathroom plasterboard. I now know that the tubs of Palace acrylic adhesive which we bought are definitely not the correct thing to use but too late now! I am in touch with the shop and manufacturer both for advice and a bit of a whinge but hoped someone could give me an unbiased comment. After about 3 weeks, tiles started falling off the wall. The adhesive had not dried other than in the spacer lines and although the impression of the tile back pattern showed beautifully on the adhesive, none was stuck to the tiles which fell off. It seems that it had good adherance to the wall though because after scraping off as much as I could, I have had to sand off the dry stuff. I decided to strip the wall above the shower tray as that was losing the most tiles. I have to sort all this out with the shop but I really want to ask whether the tiles that seem to be stuck at the moment will stay stuck or do I need to bite the bullet and strip all of the walls? I haven't yet grouted anything nor has the shower room been used. Grateful for any advice.

 

[White Room]

Your tile size is to big for tubbed gear and the shop should have advised to the contrary, the adhesive is air drying and would struggle to set in the middle of that size tile...yes I would remove the rest of the tiles.

Hi and welcome..

 

[Gazzer]

Strip it all off, very bad advice from Sales !

 

[jay]

Agree strip it all out

 

[the diving tile]

could be that a skin formed on the adhesive before you tiled

 

[Pastiemac]

Thanks everyone. Not the answer I wanted but better to do it now rather than later. I will go and get a cement based adhesive. Any suggestions? Also, I'd better ask, the grout is weber joint pro. Is this ok or have I been given duff grout too?

Re the skin, I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem as two of us were working, one applying the adhesive and the other placing the tiles. It seems from the batch number of the adhesive that it is from May 2011 which I'm told is quite old. Maybe that has compounded the situation.

 

[White Room]

Grout sounds good, now you need some single part flexible white adhesive...do you have a Tile Giant near you.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

:welcome: - I answered a thread on a similar subject a while ago, based on advice from staff in shops.

The tiles that were supplied were of similar size to yours and porcelain. The shop/warehouse insisted that they would only guarantee their tiles if you used their adhesive - Palace tubbed at £25-00 a tub.
When I refused to use the adhesive supplied, and the customer had 4 buckets, he was prepared for me to walk as he believed their story. It was only when I substituted his kitchen splashback adhesive for fast set flexible cement based powder that we carried on with the job. I went online to Palace chemicals and phoned their technical department to check the information and although not clear, they go along with other manufacturers and give a maximum 30x30cm for this adhesive.
With it being a dispersion adhesive and with a vitrified tiles the only place it can dry is through the joints and this could take months/years/if ever.
I'd have got the technical info sheet and taken it to your tile shop and claimed against them - wrong adhesive for tile type and size.

 

[Rich]

You seem to be getting the right advice from the guys above. Seems to me that the wrong adhesive was recommended.

What trowel did you use? Did you prime the plasterboard before tiling (you shouldn't need to with a tubbed adhesive)? Im just trying to look at every angle.

 

[Pastiemac]

Hi, Yes I can get to a Tile Giant.

 

[Pastiemac]

Hi, I didn't prime the plasterboard and that doesn't seem to be an issue as my current problem is getting the stuff off the board. Will I need to prime with the cement adhesive? I guess I need to follow instructions on the pack but I'm wary now. I combed the wall with a 5mm toothed comb.

 

[steve187]

you will need a deeper trowel than that, i would say a 8mm,

 

[Perry]

No you don't need to prime the plasterboard only the plaster bits but it will not hurt it if you do if any are showing but as you are using the green plasterboard you will need the flexi adhesive because it has a slimy coat on it lol that's why I always use the non green one the bucket adhesive is great but only for the buckets

 

[Al@Lifetiles]

Hi Pastiemac. Might be worth giving the tiles a light back butter ie. spreading adhesive on back of tile with flat side of notched trowel. It sounds like they havent bonded to the adhesive correctly which could indicate a contaminent (dust etc.) Butter them up and bed them in.

 

[Mike]

make sure you get a slow set adhesive and don't spread too much on the wall in one go, this could have been why the tiles didn't stick to the tubbed adhesive, it goes off real quick on plasterboard due to the moisture absorbancy of the pb. also if the cement based adhesive starts going off in the tub don't add water just bin it. good luck with it this time

 

[Time's Ran Out]

I've re read your original post and can see that if you have a receipt for the tiles and adhesive supplied by the same tile shop and on the same ticket, then they are 100% at fault. Even if you didn't prime and the tiles are ceramic (not porcelain) - they are over 50% larger than allowed by all adhesive manufacturers for a tubbed acrylic adhesive.

 

[Rich]

Whatever caused the tile to come away, that adhesive should not have been sold to fix those tiles, so I would be on the phone to who sold it to you.

You will want to get yourself a standard setting, cement based adhesive and defiantly use a larger trowel then 5mm. As said above, try an 8mm and pop a tile off, if you are not happy with how much contact you have between the tile and the adhesive then back butter the tiles as well before pressing/twisting them into the adhesive bed.