Marble Bathroom

[simmy08]

Hi, Im preparing to tile a 35m2 Bathroom in Marble.Blanco Artemis Pulido prot?????? 30x 30

Anyway the customers are putting in a freestanding Bath worth 5K for porcelanosa. It is 138kg + 2people+ water= heavy (Removed) bath.

Im still trying to work out how im going to get it up the stairs and how many men i will need

I havnt worked with Marble too much but i know it is very soft.
The bathroom is 1st floor. It is joists and chipboard
The builders have installed 9mm ply on the floor but i know it is minimum 15mm.
I will be calling porcelanosa tomorrow to see what their advise is.
My question is....??? what Kind of floor build up/materials/Prep would anyone else be doing to ensure that these tiles to dont crack at grout lines etc.
Has anyone installed an item as heavy in similar scenario.
I understand that this will be quite a weight at 1 end of this bathroom

cheers

 

[nybor62]

is the ply all ready down , as i would have the chip board up , strengthen the joists with noggins as much as poss , theres some weight going on that floor, leave out chip board , go 18 mm ply then 12 mm hardi backer then ditra

 

[simmy08]

ok thanks, if i can avoid ripping the floor up that would help. If i need to overboard and again i will. not bothered about height tbh

 

[Stewart]

Has the floor been checked to see if it's suitably supported to take such a large and heavy bath.....

 

[simmy08]

Yes the timber joists are suitable for this point load weight

 

[BWTiling]

Me personally would have to agree with nybor62 and take floor up and strengthen joists first!! No matter how much you board floor you'll still have a degree of flex / movement if there's no support between each of the joists, and you need to get rid of that Chipboard anyway! Don't know why people bother with that stuff!?? Then I'd go with 24mm Ply if no concerns over height, then a quality backerboard and good flexi addy etc. They may still have problems with Tiles as they are soft in composition anyway!

I reckon bath weight when filled with Water is going to reach somewhere in the region of 350Kg without anyone in it? That's a lot of weight fella plus, say an average of 70 - 80Kg per person!!!!

 

[simmy08]

Its a whopper of a bath. Frame needs built round it to be able to carry upstaircase. The joists have (dwangs) hah.....on the bottom of them for g/f ceiling....not on the top though. ok so 18 or 22 plywood, Backerboard and Ditra? I suppose its cheaper than a new marble floor if it fails.

 

[BWTiling]

Don't envy you fella! Recently doon a Cast Iron Oversize Bath in a Domestic property and that was heavy enough! Like I said, as long as Joists are strengthened enough should be fine structurally but as for the Marble, I think it could be a gamble as it'll compress and crumble over time with weight like that....

 

[Time's Ran Out]

I'd be surprised if the bath is only 138kg.
We undertook a bathroom refurbishment using a Porcelanosa freestanding bath and it took 6 people to get it up to a room and that had 12x3 inch joists.
I'd check what your involvement/responsibility is with this job because the weight of the tiles + suite etc and the 'builders' preparation all leads back to you accepting the suitability of workmanship!
There are questions to be asked on the forum and answers provided - however as you are inexperienced in the handling of Marble, unsure as to the preparation required, my advice would be - think long and hard before you commit to this job.

 

[simmy08]

Yeh thanks for the advice/info. Im looking forward to doing this job because i love working with Stone. Real Novelty. I like these challenges.Im sure we will come up with a solutuion thanks

 

[White Room]

These kind of jobs are not novelties

 

[simmy08]

to me it is mate