Tiles too heavy

[Perfect Tiling]

Hi all. Starting a job this week over two rooms, a bathroom and a shower room. Room was all plasterboarded last week with 12.5mm plasterboards onto studs at 600mm centres. Tiles arrived at shop last week and I saw them this morning. 12mm marble weighing 33 kg per sq mtr. Tiles were special order with no weight displayed in the shop display. Adding on for adhesive and grout its going to be around 38 kg per sq mtr. I know the limit is 32 kg per sq mtr but is there a margin added for safety. My gut says dont do it unless walls are hardibackered...any opinions. Tiles special order so shop not happy to send back.

 

[Concrete guy]

Tricky, it's borderline. Plus if you're having to tank anything that often reduces the load limit to under 36kg/m anyway.

This is the nuisance with tile shops supplying flooring products for fitting on walls. That should be a 10mm tile for wall tiling.

Things to weigh up.

Who's going to pay for the re boarding?
Do you have to tank anything? If you do, does that compromise weight load anyway?

Technically you need to reboard everything.

Real world it's unlikely to fail, but if it did and you had tiled on plasterboard the buck stops with you.

 

[Perfect Tiling]

Thanks for that. Just been on the shops "topp" website and the tiles say marble floor tile. I worked out the quantities of tiles for the order but the shop display was on a wall and nothing said floor tile or the weight. Only saw the weight today when I saw the tiles on a pallet. Even the website does not say the weight. Also, tiles have bad reviews for cracking after fitting. I'll probably get blame since I did the estimate and order but how could I know the weight when its not stated and tiles not stocked so no boxes to see with weight written on

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

"We all as tradesmen have a duty of care , and if you know its wrong don't do it or you will be liable for any probs, "Just saying "

 

[Perfect Tiling]

The shop are taking the tiles back as they are a floor tile. I'm buying a set of bathroon scales for my van tomorrow. Lots of tiles dont show the weight. The job I am on just now...5 tiles in a box totalling .99 sq mtr but no weight on the box anywhere. Thanks all.

 

[Ian]

600 centres are very wide with a single 12.5mm board, there's going to be a lot of flex IMO.

 

[Stef]

As Bri says, 600mm centres are too far apart, these should be dropped down to 400 or preferably 300 centres.

 

[White Room]

600 centres are very wide with a single 12.5mm board, there's going to be a lot of flex IMO.

Thats what British Gypsum recommend maximum 600mm centres but thats for decorating/skimming, if your fixing for extra weight then more noggins should be fixed or go 400mm studs.

 

[Perfect Tiling]

Two rows of noggins between studs...800mm up and 1600mm up. Wall in 4 x 2 so solid. Customer happy I'm not just going to chance it. In the TTA so I have to do it by the book or not at all imo. Topps might not be happy with me but any failures would be on my head...an I like to sleep easy!!!

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Well done that man!

 

[thompsonbrown]

Ive just finished a bathroom where the porcelain tiles weight 32kg per m2. Only 10mm thick but you could feel the difference from a normal porcelain tile.
Just had to re-line the whole bathroom with Marmox. Tile shop told customer that the weight should be ok "as they were porcelain"?
From last April all tiles sold in uk have to be CE approved and should have weight, type of tile, origin and manufacturer on the box. Might take some time for this to filter through but will at least give Tile shops an idea of the weight of tiles they are selling. Hopefully they might place weight limit on structure signs, next to tiles they are selling.

 

[Perfect Tiling]

Thank you to all replies...much appreciated. Just to finalise...tiles returned at no expense to customer and new ones ordered from same shop...marble effect ceramic at half the weight. Customer happy...shop still got a sale...and I can sleep easy!!!!...not just now though as off with a pulled back.