Outside Tiling terrace & hot tub area..

[Stalbot]

Hi all,
I am looking for some advice, I have an outside area that required tiling, it was concreted a few years ago and has been exposed to the elements. I was planning on power washing the concrete before starting as it has gone bit green in areas due to moss and algae! The tiles I am using are standard 1 foot porcelain tiles with a slight ripple on the edge.

I have been putting the job off for a while now as I am a bit worried about the ground being completely dry, very hard to achieve in the UK, but not sure if it is completely necessary if I use a powder water based mix.
I was planning on power washing, then giving the concrete a coat of acrylic primer before starting the job, do I need to do this, or is it over kill?
I was planning on using a rapid set flexible adhesive to lay the tiles, may need to thicken it in areas to make up levels - is this acceptable?

If anyone has any recommendations on the best adhesive to use & pointers on preparing the area it would be very much appreciated.

many thanks

Simon.

 

[Dan]

Jet wash it, wait for it to be dry for a couple of days (this time of year is your only chance probably) and use a cement-based adhesive. I assume no need for primer but the lads might correct me. I think I'd perhaps use a single-part flexible adhesive just for the extra security but I think that even might be an overkill. Again the lads know better than myself.

Thickness-wise, how thick are you talking about? What's the adhesive going to need to cope with? Basically the various adhesive have different maximum depths / thicknesses. So you'd just need to make sure that you're not going over that. Could do with throwing a straight edge (metal) over the floor in a few places to see what sort of gaps you have on the low bits.

And, a tip that's getting boring now lol, use a house brick to rub over the high bits and it'll smooth off the lumpy bits for you. But then create a lot of dust. So just sweep that up and use a sprinkle of water when you do so that it gets it up properly and doesn't just keep throwing it around. Then sweep as you tile too so your adhesive gets a really good key.

 

[Old Mod]

im so tempted!

 

[Dan]

Comes out in any concrete thread that brick does lol