Marble sealant advice required

[hungover]

Last year I tiled a bathroom with marble tiles. The client wanted a marble bath top. The suppliers took my template and returned with 4 strips. I siliconed them to the top of the bath and then sealed them with the water based sealant that the customer supplied (I did express concerns about using a waterbased sealant but the customer insisted). I then used dow corning sanitary to finish off.

6 Months later the client rang to tell me that when ever they showered they had a torrent of water in the room below.

On closer inspection it seemed that the Silicon was failing, I guess because the waterbased stone sealant was allowing the tiles to soak up water. I applied a white spirit based sealant and resiliconed. Some months later the clients had the same problem.

This time I removed the marble from the top of the bath and discovered that the undersides of the marble were "slimy" and that that whilst my Silicon was stuck fast to the bath it easily pealed off the underside of the marble.

I have now sealed all sides of the marble the whitespirit based sealant and glued the marble down with Dow and Plumbers Gold.

Although the WS sealant is better than the WB it still allows the tiles to adsorb water and I am concerned that I will be back there in a few months.

Can anyone recommend a truly water proof alternative?

Many thanks

 

[Dan]

What did you fix the marble to? Is it a wooden frame of some sort?

You shouldn't be using anything but tile adhesive suitable for fixing marble to fix them to whatever it is you're fixing them to.

Dow and plumbers gold just wont cut the mustard. You'll be going back there regularly long-term if they're not fixed and grouted correctly using the proper stuff.

 

[hungover]

What did you fix the marble to? Is it a wooden frame of some sort?

You shouldn't be using anything but tile adhesive suitable for fixing marble to fix them to whatever it is you're fixing them to.

Dow and plumbers gold just wont cut the mustard. You'll be going back there regularly long-term if they're not fixed and grouted correctly using the proper stuff.

hi Dan,

Thanks for the reply.

The client wanted the bath to sit about 60mm away from the wall on the long side so I hot melt glued/CT1'd 3x2" PAR to the long side of the bath. Other than that the two short lengths are buried in the wall.

The bath is pressed steel so I figured that Silicon would allow for greater movement than the cement based adhesive that I used on the walls.

The client wanted the gaps between the bath top marble to be as inconspicuous as possible so I used Silicon between the joints and then coloured styrene resin filler.

I then finished the last row of the wall tiles down to the bath top, grouted and then ran a Silicon seal.



TBH removing the marble top is a real pain in the rear. The marble top has a pull out shower. To remove the pull out shower head I have to remove the solid slab bath panel to get to the fittings. Removing the bath panel involves removing the adjacent vanity unit with its plumbing and electrical fittings. Then I have to use a very long knife to cut through the Silicon holding the marble top down and the Silicon seals where it meets the wall tiles.



I am more than happy to accept that I may have used the wrong products. What would you recommend for the bathtop marble given that 90% of it is fixed to enameled steel?


Even if the underside Silicon had not failed I suspect that the wall tile to bathtop Silicon would have failed in time, it came away much easier than it should. This I put down to the fact that the tiles are absorbing too much water when the main showerhead is being used. Regardless I still need a decent stone sealant. leaks aside, the client doesn't want the tiles to darken each time he showers. The waterbased stuff was expensive and crap the White Spirit based stuff from the local tile shop was only £25 f0r 1L and is better but after 4 coats it is still not waterproof.

Tnx

 

[DHTiling]

You should not have done it that way anyway.... no matter what the customer wanted.. 100% failure guaranteed every time.. you cannot tile to the bath and expect anything to hold and as for waterproof... jeez you cannot expect a sealer to do it..

This is what happens when none tilers take on work that they have no idea about.. sorry to sound harsh but what you have done is going to fail all day long every day..

 

[hungover]

You should not have done it that way anyway.... no matter what the customer wanted.. 100% failure guaranteed every time.. you cannot tile to the bath and expect anything to hold and as for waterproof... jeez you cannot expect a sealer to do it..

This is what happens when none tilers take on work that they have no idea about.. sorry to sound harsh but what you have done is going to fail all day long every day..

Indeed... a tad harsh but perhaps fair comment. To date I have tiled about 25 bathrooms and resiliconed about 60, never a problem until this job.

I don't question your superior knowledge but I still don't understand why using Silicon to "glue down" the marble is so wrong. Granted the joint between the meeting faces of marble will always be dynamic and thus a potential "weak" point, never-the-less, had the Silicon adhered correctly it seems logical that there would not have been a problem. In my case the Silicon seems to have failed because the tiles are absorbing too much water and thus the adhesive qualities of the Silicon failed.

Feel free to malign me if you feel the need will but at least please do so in a constructive manner. My original question was a request for recommendations for a stone sealant that actually seals marble. The fact that the vertical tiles get darker at the bottom is proof of the fact that the sealants used thus far are crap.

I freely admit that my experience of working with natural stone is very limited but I do remember using a very smelly solvent based sealant years ago that I used to seal limestone, i just can't remember which one it was. Hence I am here asking for recommendations.

 

[DHTiling]

Sealants do not water proof stone, they simply protect it from stains etc... the marble is always going to get wet underneath through the face or grout lines...

My point is that you should not be tiling directly to the bath , it is going to fail very time.. sorry but that is the truth...

 

[Dan]

There are products that can stick tile to pretty much anything, but Silicon instead of adhesive and sealer to act as a waterproof barrier just isn't the way to go.

Tiles are there for easy cleaning and for their looks, and shouldn't be treated as a waterproof barrier. If you want to waterproof and area of a room, or a room, you do that before tiling and then the adhesive and grout (that will absorb water) are only holding the tiles on, it allows water to pass through the products but never break them down (causing failure).

What you've done there is use products sensitive to water, to try and waterproof an area. It was set to fail on day one.

The fact it was a maul to do only suggests it should have been done right the first time as I'm sure I'm telling you to suck eggs when I say spending time attempting to repair it, several times, is just costing a lot more time than it would have taken to do it right the first time.

You need to get the failed tiles up fully, clean them up, clean the substrate up, use the right products, and re-tile the area. And then seal it if required only to seal the tile surface for the required effect the customer wants. And you need to use a proper marble sealer product from a proper sealer company.

Not too sure what you wanted us to say mate to be honest.

 

[Dan]

Indeed... a tad harsh but perhaps fair comment. To date I have tiled about 25 bathrooms and resiliconed about 60, never a problem until this job.

I don't question your superior knowledge but I still don't understand why using Silicon to "glue down" the marble is so wrong. Granted the joint between the meeting faces of marble will always be dynamic and thus a potential "weak" point, never-the-less, had the Silicon adhered correctly it seems logical that there would not have been a problem. In my case the Silicon seems to have failed because the tiles are absorbing too much water and thus the adhesive qualities of the Silicon failed.

Feel free to malign me if you feel the need will but at least please do so in a constructive manner. My original question was a request for recommendations for a stone sealant that actually seals marble. The fact that the vertical tiles get darker at the bottom is proof of the fact that the sealants used thus far are crap.

I freely admit that my experience of working with natural stone is very limited but I do remember using a very smelly solvent based sealant years ago that I used to seal limestone, i just can't remember which one it was. Hence I am here asking for recommendations.

Silicon isn't an adhesive, it's meant to be used upto a few mm, and where two surfaces meet and there is a joint. Not to apply to a whole surface and squash upto another.

Silicon should never be used to stick tiles to anything and when it does get used, it will always always fail. Tilers go out to jobs on a weekly basis where somebody has bodged the bottom row of tiles in a shower back on with a big mess of Silicon. The fact is, the background (plaster, plasterboard, whatever) is already damaged at this point so it doesn't matter how many times you 're-bodge' it. It'll keep failing.

We often find the whole shower needs to be stripped, the background repaired, then properly tanked (to prevent it ever happening again) and then and only then tiled with the right stuff.

Tiling should last a lifetime not a couple of months.

 

[hungover]

Sealants do not water proof stone, they simply protect it from stains etc... the marble is always going to get wet underneath through the face or grout lines...

My point is that you should not be tiling directly to the bath , it is going to fail very time.. sorry but that is the truth...

Thanks dave,

That reply was more helpful.

If we put my current problem to one side- the client has two other tiled showers, not done by me, but both of which suffer from the lower tiles turning dark as the water is absorbed. Can you recommend a sealant that will be superior to the White spirit based ones?

 

[Dan]

No way - just re-read and caught up on this. You're tiling the actual enamelled bath?!

 

[hungover]

There are products that can stick tile to pretty much anything, but Silicon instead of adhesive and sealer to act as a waterproof barrier just isn't the way to go.

Tiles are there for easy cleaning and for their looks, and shouldn't be treated as a waterproof barrier. If you want to waterproof and area of a room, or a room, you do that before tiling and then the adhesive and grout (that will absorb water) are only holding the tiles on, it allows water to pass through the products but never break them down (causing failure).

What you've done there is use products sensitive to water, to try and waterproof an area. It was set to fail on day one.

The fact it was a maul to do only suggests it should have been done right the first time as I'm sure I'm telling you to suck eggs when I say spending time attempting to repair it, several times, is just costing a lot more time than it would have taken to do it right the first time.

You need to get the failed tiles up fully, clean them up, clean the substrate up, use the right products, and re-tile the area. And then seal it if required only to seal the tile surface for the required effect the customer wants. And you need to use a proper marble sealer product from a proper sealer company.

Not too sure what you wanted us to say mate to be honest.

Thanks Dan

Yep- I'd like to use the correct products. This is costing me buckets loads.

Following your post I appreciate that I was expecting too much and should have said no when asked to do it (given my limited experience). The fact remains that I have 4 strips of marble sitting on a bath. Are you able to recommend suitable products or are you saying that it is impossible to have a marbled top bath that will be subjected to water?

I know that no product is 100% waterproof but stoopibly though that sealed marble would be showerproof.

Cheers

 

[hungover]

No way - just re-read and caught up on this. You're tiling the actual enamelled bath?!

Yes, the top only, the client wanted something that looked like an under-mount bath The tile supplier insisted that it had have joins given how thin the sections would be.

 

[hungover]

I still need a stone sealant that prevents polished marble tiles from darkening when one showers

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Thanks dave,

That reply was more helpful.

If we put my current problem to one side- the client has two other tiled showers, not done by me, but both of which suffer from the lower tiles turning dark as the water is absorbed. Can you recommend a sealant that will be superior to the White spirit based ones?

you've hit the nail on the head there. now you have to figure out where the water is ingressing that is causing the tiles to absorb the water. sealing over the tiles isn't going to solve the problem, merely mask it.

 

[hungover]

you've hit the nail on the head there. now you have to figure out where the water is ingressing that is causing the tiles to absorb the water. sealing over the tiles isn't going to solve the problem, merely mask it.

???

One shower has travertine tiles that were very absorbant, possibly fitted 5 years ago. The client asked me to seal them and resilicone the tray. I used the crap wb stuff. The Silicon is starting to blacken on the tile reverse side. There are no leaks. The water ingress is from the face of the tile when showering.

The second shower is marble. It too has no leaks. The lower 2 rows of tiles darken when showering.



In the bathroom I am working in, there are no leaks at all (for now). Where water bounces off the tiles for a prolonged period, they too darken.