Discuss Tiling on ply wood floors in the Australia Tiling Forum area at TilersForums.com.

M

mattaylor21

Hi all!
I have been reading a lot of posts about avoiding tiling directly onto plywood.
Most of my work is bathroom fitting and I usually rip out all the floorboards and strengthen the floor joists and run a line of 3x2 between the joist where a joint in the plywood will be. Then I glue and screw 18mm best ply down to the joists at 300mm centres. I feel this gives a very solid floor which I then seal with acrylic primer and tile. This method also ensures there is no step into the room at the doorway. I have done loads of floors in this way and never had a problem! ( touch wood )
Have I been doing it wrong all these years? I'm just interested on everyone's thoughts of this way of doing a floor.
Most of my customers have electric UFH as well so I install that to the ply (or insulated boards if they want them) and then pour a layer of self levelling to cover the UFH before I tile it.
 
A

Alan.P

As above, as times and technology move on we learn better ways of doing things. The belt and braces is as your doing, board, insulation board and fix, BUT if you do do it with just the ply then it's the underside and edges of the boards that should be primed, sometimes the tiled surface as well, depending on adhesive being used and manufactures instructions.
 
S

Stef

I like to do a thorough job and every day is a school day!
So as for UFH over ply and and then self levelling over the UFH that would give a surface to tile on??
So you guys would prefer to just over board the original floor boards with a thin tile backer board and tile on that?

Exactly, glue & screw a cement board onto the deck.
If I had the option I would fix 18/22mm ply then overboard, done my own downstairs shower & fitted ply then overboarded with 4mm Wedi board, hasn't budged since laid.
 
S

Stef

It will slightly decouple as it's a separate layer.
I hate tiling to ply as I stated it's not a good surface to tile to.
Tiling has moved on massively in the past few years & so has the products that they can be fixed to.
I still hear 25+yrs Tilers claiming that PVA is ok to tile to as they've always done it that way without problem!!! [emoji35][emoji35]
 
M

mike1979

Does that add much cost to the job? I can't imagine 4mm wedi is a great lot to buy?
Sorry if I'm being thick but what is the actual advantage of have the wedi board? Just so the adhesive sticks better?
You can pick up backer boards for around 7 quid a sheet size is usually 1200x600
 
M

mattaylor21

I usually use granfix fibre flex 30 or I have used BAL in the past.
Oh well £7 isn't much is it! If I'm going to tile onto ply from now on I will overlay it with the 4mm wedi first. You stick it down with tile adhesive and screw it right??
But for the jobs that have the SLC laid straight onto the ply, over the UFH then they are fine to tile to?
 

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Title
Tiling on ply wood floors
Prefix
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Forum
Australia Tiling Forum
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Replies
16

Which tile adhesive brand did you use most this year?

  • Palace

    Votes: 9 6.1%
  • Kerakoll

    Votes: 13 8.8%
  • Ardex

    Votes: 11 7.5%
  • Mapei

    Votes: 44 29.9%
  • Ultra Tile

    Votes: 17 11.6%
  • BAL

    Votes: 35 23.8%
  • Wedi

    Votes: 3 2.0%
  • Benfer

    Votes: 2 1.4%
  • Tilemaster

    Votes: 20 13.6%
  • Weber

    Votes: 18 12.2%
  • Other (any other brand not listed)

    Votes: 15 10.2%
  • Nicobond

    Votes: 7 4.8%
  • Norcros

    Votes: 3 2.0%
  • Kelmore

    Votes: 4 2.7%

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