Tiling onto Tongued and Grooved Chipboard Flooring

[Flash_uk]

Hi All, This is my first post so be gentle! I'm currently part way through completely renovating the downstairs of my house and am now at a point of being ready to tile the kitchen/dining room floors. The floors are moisture resistant tongue & groove chipboard and after having researched on this forum and others I know i should not ideally be tiling straight onto this. My father in law is insiisting i can however despite being proficient in DIY he is not a tiler so I want to get this right! I have checked all of the floor boards for creaks and screwed down firmly. The tiles we have planned to use are Travertine, sized 40.6cm x 61cm. I have not purchaseed these yet as I want to get everything right. I was intending to fit cement coated 6mm tile backer board (i need to minimise the change in floor height) using adhesive and then screw and then tape the joints. Would this be sufficient? [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I also need suggestions on adhesive and grout. I'm not intending to use a tubbed addy and know I need flexible adhesive and grout but is there anything that I should look for or avoid? Ideally need to keep the cost down however i don't want to have any cracked tiles or grout down the line so would prefer to get whatever is right rather than cheapest[/FONT] Thanks in advance and if I've missed anything then please feel free to point it out!​

 

[White Room]

Hi and welcome...make sure you have no bounce on the floor....

 

[lizzardtong]

Hi. i would do it like that:
- i would apply thin layer of glue (adhesive) on the joist under the board then in to the groove (but v. thin layer so they would lock propetly) then i would screw it down dont use nails.
- then i would fit ditra matt or something similar
- then fexible adhesive and grout remembering about expantion joints if it is large area,
but thats me i might be wrond. wait for other replies.

 

[Flash_uk]

Hi and welcome...make sure you have no bounce on the floor....

Thanks Whitebeam. Is there anything specific i can do to test this? I have read about using a glass of water and jumping on the floor to see if anything spills, however this seems to have been praised by some and discounted by others.

The floor doesn't feel to have any movement, it has been down for circa 12 years and I have added additional screws at 300mm centres along the joists.

 

[Ajax123]

The glass of water is as good a test as any in the unscientific world and would do the job for you. You hould also get a scone person to watch the floor as you jump to see if it moves much. Your father in law is right that you can tile directly to Tongue and groove but only if you want it to as less than about a week. I you want a Good floor your idea of Tile backer is far more suitable.

If the floor bounces you can add noggins between the joists to help remove it.

The correct test for determining bounce is called a soft body impact test and nvolves dropping a given weight (bag of sand) from a given height on to a loor under which is a depression guage which measures how far the underneath of the floor depresses. Sort of apps really because if you tile I and I bounces it will no doubt depress you.

 

[Flash_uk]

Right, so I'm fairly comfortable now with regards to the prep for the floor. I just need to establish the appropriate adhesive and grout to use.


I was looking at BAL Single Part Fastflex, however I have read that it is not suitable for use on natural stone susceptible to staining, which includes travertine so it looks like that wouldn't be suitable. BAL instead recommend using BAL PTB Flexible tile adhesive in white. Would this be OK or has anyone used anything else with success? Still looking for suitable grout too