Tiling in a Mobile / Park home

[thearge]

Hi everyone

I am a competent Diy'er and have undertaken a re-furb on a Park / Mobile home, everything is going well and i am soon to undertake tiling the bathroom, i have had various suggestions regarding the best way to successfully do this, the walls are pretty flexible and apart from inside the shower enclosure which has been overboarded they have just been stripped of the original wallpaper. Overboarding of the walls is not really an option due to construction of the home, will i get a successfull result by just tiling and using a flexible type grout ?.....any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.....Steve ( Luton )

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Hi mate and:welcome:to the TF what are the walls at the moment? ie. plasterboard, ply?

 

[thearge]

Hi Mate, thanks for reply
Walls are ply and only about 4mm.
Steve

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

If you could replace the ply with a backer-board, like James Hardie it is only 6mm. Providing you can get a good fixing, it would be a stable surface for tiling on to. Good luck

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Just realised 6mm Hardie board is for floors, they do 10mm for walls. You can get other backer- boards in different thicknesses eg. Wedi, Mamox, etc.

 

[thearge]

Thanks Phil
I will see if i can make that work with the current window and architrave arrangements.
Steve

 

[doug boardley]

would you not be better using that panel boarding with the melamine type surface?

 

[White Room]

I'd be concerned about movement

 

[kilty55]

the walls of a caravan are similar to a rolf harris wa wa board,not being rude but i cant see tiling them working

as above can you frame and fix cement boards mate?

 

[peckers]

theres no easy way to tile a caravan most of the walls are 4mm hardboard. you will have to remove the boards and add extra fixings to the studwork frame of the caravan. If i remember rightly its only 2x2 as it is. you will have to add extra support to the frame work and then i would use a 10mm hardi backer board as this is a cement board and it is moisture resistant. this will interfere with your windows as these normally finish flush with the existing wall finish. you may have to form your own reveal at this point you can either tile it or you could use plastic window trims to cover this, the same would apply to the door frame too.

the problem you have is that the way the caravan walls are constructed at the moment is that if you lean on them then they move and bend! this would make the tiles pop of the substrate.

theres quite a bit of work involved before you get to tile.(but it can be done)

 

[thearge]

Thanks Steve
Having investigated the websites of Wedi and Marmox i may follow Phils hint and take off the 4mm boards and replace with 6mm Wedi or Marmox boards with perhaps some added studwork, it should give a bit of support and be moisture resistant, has anyone tried this ??
Steve

 

[faithhealer]

welcome to the forum thearge

 

[Bathfix Bob]

I was asked today about tiling a bathroom floor in a caravan, its an area about 1200mm x 1200mm.

I didn't go to quote or anything he just mentioned it while I was there, plenty of bounce in the floor and its currently a vinyl covered wet room.

Don't really want the job as I don't want to go near that toilet.....yuck! :ban:

 

[kilty55]

i wouldnt go near it either bob lol

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Altro flooring is the best for this type of area.

 

[BoldreChris]

Hi Steve and welcome to the forum. I've done a couple of kitchens in park homes and the walss are very flexible indeed. Traditional tiling techniques just wont work, even the super flexi adhesives and grouts can't take that much movement. So (and I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, I expect!) I've resorted to using flexible building adhesive to attach the tiles and silicone to grout them. The best adhesive at the moment is FlexTec FT101 and it bonds very well to the mobile home wallboards.

The tiles have to be thoroughly degreased before grouting - alcohol wipes or similar do the job. It's a pretty tedious job to grout with silicone but you can clean the gloop off the surfaces and get a fine finish using white spirit but only within maybe five minutes of first squeezing it in.

Hope that helps. Good luck with it...

 

[JRCCR]

I subcontracted for a company last year who manufacture park homes throughout the UK, they are based only a few miles away from me. They used 12mm ply on the floors and the walls were 18mm and they were tiled before transportation to the location they were going.. Never had any problems until the homes settled in, thats when some of them started cracking. Nice homes and nice park sites but very cheaply made. My main part in this was travelling UK to rectify the problems.