Outdoor tiling

[Stu Brard]

Evening all, I’ve been asked to tile some exterior walls. When I say walls, they are planter beds made of breeze blocks. I’m not sure what the tiles are made of as customer was unsure but they are about an inch thick. Would a rapid setting flexible adhesive be suitable to stick the tiles to the breeze blocks? Would I still need to use primer before tiling?

Many thanks in advance, Stu

 

[Concrete guy]

At "about an inch thick" it's going to be natural stone or external porcelain.

Frost and water ingress are your enemies here. You really need an idea of what you're fitting and the slab/tile sizes before you proceed.

Back in the day whenever I did anything external I always used to use Ardex S21, it stuck anything to anything, but it was sloppy, like a liquid sand/cement mix as opposed to tile adhesive. If you know what I mean. So probably more suited to flooring than walls.

I often wonder of cladding the breeze blocks in a backer like wedi or Lux board would help but in my mind it's just creating a further point of potential failure.

Being external it's only going to have a finite lifespan, as long as you make that clear to the customer I think you'll get off on the right foot.

 

[Stu Brard]

At "about an inch thick" it's going to be natural stone or external porcelain.

Frost and water ingress are your enemies here. You really need an idea of what you're fitting and the slab/tile sizes before you proceed.

Back in the day whenever I did anything external I always used to use Ardex S21, it stuck anything to anything, but it was sloppy, like a liquid sand/cement mix as opposed to tile adhesive. If you know what I mean. So probably more suited to flooring than walls.

I often wonder of cladding the breeze blocks in a backer like wedi or Lux board would help but in my mind it's just creating a further point of potential failure.

Being external it's only going to have a finite lifespan, as long as you make that clear to the customer I think you'll get off on the right foot.

At "about an inch thick" it's going to be natural stone or external porcelain.

Frost and water ingress are your enemies here. You really need an idea of what you're fitting and the slab/tile sizes before you proceed.

Back in the day whenever I did anything external I always used to use Ardex S21, it stuck anything to anything, but it was sloppy, like a liquid sand/cement mix as opposed to tile adhesive. If you know what I mean. So probably more suited to flooring than walls.

I often wonder of cladding the breeze blocks in a backer like wedi or Lux board would help but in my mind it's just creating a further point of potential failure.

Being external it's only going to have a finite lifespan, as long as you make that clear to the customer I think you'll get off on the right foot.

Yes it’s porcelain paving from Pavestone. The exterior floor is tiled with them and the customer wanted the planter beds dressed with the same stuff. The walls are no more than a 12 inches tall.

It’s hard to know if it’s even suitable for that type of application.

Thanks for your help

 

[Dan]

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