F
florabritannica
Hi, DIYer here and trying to work out my best solution for tiling around a drop in tub with an upstand without spending a fortune. Fortunes being relative, of course. Have tiled on solid walls before but this is a bit different. Here's my situ:
Tiles: 10mm thick ceramic, not porcelain, floor tiles. Chose them partly because you ALWAYS end up standing on a surface round a bath sometime to clean the extractor vent in the ceiling or something, so I didn't want a wall tile that I'd worry about. (Plus I liked the pattern best.)
Bathtub: drop in with an area of tile about 250mm wide between it and the walls on 3 sides, plus a shelf/lip on the open side. Surround is all supported on framing, fixed to walls and braced to an inner frame around the tub, with 18mm exterior ply on top. Total area under a square metre.
Walls: dry lined, with timber framing running vertically at about 600-700mm centres with celotex flush between them. The upper part will be covered with panelling, but I want to fit an upstand of one row of tiles at the bottom 300mm high. Total area of that just over a square metre.
For the upstand, the simplest plan is to fix more of the plywood to the framing and tile onto it. This would be very rigid: tile backer boards seem thinner, more flexible. I'd have to remove insulation and add extra battens to fix at much closer centres, and I'd really rather not do that. Given that it's just the one row, I'm fairly happy that the tiles will be fine on ply if I prime it properly and the top edge is protected/covered. Fair enough?
I understand that for larger tiles I'll be better off using a powder rather than a premix, because it cures chemically and so better when grout gaps are further apart, and I have read all the opinions that say BAL or Mapei are the way to go and certain unnamed brands are made of bird spit. Since I'm in the back of beyond in west Cornwall and Screwfix is my nearest stockist of serious brands, mostly Mapei, I was looking at Mapei Keraquick and Keraflex.
So, do I need a flexible adhesive? There's a comment on the Screwfix site saying Keraquick is great but the tiles are coming off the wall with Keraflex. Are flexible adhesives less good for walls, or is that one lone story I shouldn't worry about? Do I need a flexible adhesive for the horizontal tiles, the framing is about as rigid as you can get? I do only want to buy one product, given the small area, what's my best bet?
I'd appreciate comments from experience on min-max adhesive thickness: trying to get this to the right level for the lip of the tub, which came without adjustable legs (because that would have made my life too easy) is proving a great deal of fun. Something that isn't choosy about being exactly Xmm thick is best!
And, is the Mapei Primer G synthetic resin-based primer the thing I want for on plywood?
Any solid advice much appreciated, thanks!
Tiles: 10mm thick ceramic, not porcelain, floor tiles. Chose them partly because you ALWAYS end up standing on a surface round a bath sometime to clean the extractor vent in the ceiling or something, so I didn't want a wall tile that I'd worry about. (Plus I liked the pattern best.)
Bathtub: drop in with an area of tile about 250mm wide between it and the walls on 3 sides, plus a shelf/lip on the open side. Surround is all supported on framing, fixed to walls and braced to an inner frame around the tub, with 18mm exterior ply on top. Total area under a square metre.
Walls: dry lined, with timber framing running vertically at about 600-700mm centres with celotex flush between them. The upper part will be covered with panelling, but I want to fit an upstand of one row of tiles at the bottom 300mm high. Total area of that just over a square metre.
For the upstand, the simplest plan is to fix more of the plywood to the framing and tile onto it. This would be very rigid: tile backer boards seem thinner, more flexible. I'd have to remove insulation and add extra battens to fix at much closer centres, and I'd really rather not do that. Given that it's just the one row, I'm fairly happy that the tiles will be fine on ply if I prime it properly and the top edge is protected/covered. Fair enough?
I understand that for larger tiles I'll be better off using a powder rather than a premix, because it cures chemically and so better when grout gaps are further apart, and I have read all the opinions that say BAL or Mapei are the way to go and certain unnamed brands are made of bird spit. Since I'm in the back of beyond in west Cornwall and Screwfix is my nearest stockist of serious brands, mostly Mapei, I was looking at Mapei Keraquick and Keraflex.
So, do I need a flexible adhesive? There's a comment on the Screwfix site saying Keraquick is great but the tiles are coming off the wall with Keraflex. Are flexible adhesives less good for walls, or is that one lone story I shouldn't worry about? Do I need a flexible adhesive for the horizontal tiles, the framing is about as rigid as you can get? I do only want to buy one product, given the small area, what's my best bet?
I'd appreciate comments from experience on min-max adhesive thickness: trying to get this to the right level for the lip of the tub, which came without adjustable legs (because that would have made my life too easy) is proving a great deal of fun. Something that isn't choosy about being exactly Xmm thick is best!
And, is the Mapei Primer G synthetic resin-based primer the thing I want for on plywood?
Any solid advice much appreciated, thanks!
