Travertine walls tiles: Advice for DIYer

[Gazz]

Dave,Beanz,Grumpy & Smurf 21

Appreciate your points, well made. I note that you are complying with manufacturers guidlines & British Standards etc with regard to weight loads etc & I like yourselves, do not want to experience either myself or any member of my family sitting in the bath with a lump of travertine falling on their head.

I've actually bought the hardibacker for the main wall (1.8 metres wide X2 metres bath to ceiling: external brick wall, plastered). I've bought 2X1.5" wood lats which I'm fixing at 10" centres to the wall using 3" size 10 screws & appropriate wall plugs (wickes high performance). I'll screw the backerboard to this with 40mm aquapanel fixings (couldn't get hold of the hardibacker screws but was assured that the aquapanel ones would do the trick).

1. Will this set up be adequate for the full height wall?

I,m going to use Mapei cement based white adhesive to fix.

2. Can I be confident that the adhesive WILL hold the travertine immediately and for years to come: what is the load ratio of modern adhesives ie Kg per square metre, preumably greater than the load max of backerboard?

Even using the backerboard I am still a little wary about tiling the full wall (paranoid about a tile falling off even several years down the line. Am I right to be worried?

With regard to the half tiled walls. I'll be tiling two tiles high (36") maximum plus a border. I guess when I was questioning the loads, expansion gaps etc, the point I was trying to make was that the guidelines do not seem to consider the total area to be tiled. For example I can undersatand that to tile a 10m X 10m area with no expansion gap would be follish, but maybe it would be less of an issue tiling a 36" high area.

I'm going to strip the plaster up to 36" on these walls and fit plasterboard.

I really appreciate the advice you guys have given. It quickly became obvious from several of the tile shops which I visited, that the individuals dishing out the information had never laid a travertine tile in their life. One in particular, when questioned about the loads and when I described my walls simply stated I would have no problems and that a 1930's semi wall set up would be much stronger than the plasterboard wall of the new builds, just go ahead and do it, loads of people have done this: pity help them.

For info I ended up getting my tiles at Costco: they've got a turkish travertine, very pale in colour, but look to be very good quality (from my limited experience). They come in packs of 4, 18" X 18" at about £18.00 per sq yd.

Again sincere thanks for all the advice given: I'll no doubt have further questions as the job goes on.

Gazz

 

[TheWrightTiler]

Tile and Adhesive Weight Per Square Metre

Weight per sq metre (Kg) for 3mm thin bed solid bed adhesive application
Weight per sq metre (Kg) for 6mm thick bed solid bed adhesive application
6mm thick glazed tile
14.26 Kg/m2
18.46 Kg/m2
8mm thick glazed tile
17.62 Kg/m2
21.82 Kg/m2
10mm thick glazed tile
20.97 Kg/m2
25.17 Kg/m2
12mm thick glazed tile
24.32 Kg/m2
28.52 Kg/m2
12mm thick quarry
26.40 Kg/m2
30.06 Kg/m2
10mm thick porcelain
23.88 Kg/m2
28.09 Kg/m2
12mm thick porcelain
27.82 Kg/m2
32.00 Kg/m2
10mm thick natural stone
31.10 Kg/m2
35.30 Kg/m2
12mm thick natural stone
36.48 Kg/m2
40.68 Kg/m2
20mm thick natural stone
58.00 Kg/m2
62.20 Kg/m2​

Tiles of over 8mm thick should not be fixed to plaster (maximum permitted weight is 20Kg/m2), however all the tiles above could be fixed to Marmox tile backer board.
Maximum Permitted Weights

These are maximum permitted weights per m2 of tiles and adhesive combined:

Plaster 20kg/m2
Plasterboard 32kg/m2
Render 40kg/m2
Marmox Tile Backer Board 62kg/m2

Note: this information is for guidance only and can vary depending on the type of adhesive and density of the tile being used. Always check before fixing as no liability will be accepted. Cement based adhesives have a mass of approximately 1.4Kg per mm thickness. Porous body glazed tiles have a mass of approximately 1677Kg/m3, quarry tiles 1850Kg/m3, Porcelain 1968Kg/m3 and natural stone 2690Kg/m3.

hope this helps

andy

 

[Gazz]

Back again

My bathroom is almost finished now & I'd firstly like to thank all who responded to my questions and indeed anyone on this site whose posts I read and learned from.

The travertine looks the biz: it was daunting to start with: As it was a one off I didn't want (need ) to spend an awful lot of money on very expensive kit, so I made do with existing tools/lower priced items which I knew would only last for so long and may have been restrictive (probably made things a little more difficult for myself in the long run, but got there nonetheless.

Having said that, I took advice re backerboard on the main wall where I was tiling full height. Fixed to battens which were in turn held by 4" screw & plugs. I was swinging from them trying to pull them off the wall: didnt budge!

I also took advice from various threads and chose Mapei rapid set white flexi adhesive and Mapei Jasmine grout.

Other things I've learned which may be useful to other Travertine "virgins".

1. Mapei rapid set isn't that rapid at setting. I was worried when I bought it that I was going to be rushing like hell to fit a couple of tiles before my bucket went hard.

2. Mapei grout: Be patient when you add water: This stuff looks as though it isn't mixing then suddenly seems to paste up, by which time you've added far too much water.

3. Drilling travertine for screwing fixings etc: Standard tile drill bits work fine for a one off job, but be warned they will break, so be prepared to use a few (very cheap option though).

4. Need to drill a larger hole to accomodate a cistern flush rod (built a travertine covered unit to house built in cistern and half inset sink). The hole required was about 3/4", but I had the luxury of a cover plate of about 1 & 1/4". Would have loved to have bought diamond hole saw, but skint. So I marked out the circle, drilled about eight holes around the circumference and then used a standard hole saw to take out what was left. This left small chip marks around the edge, but as I had to fit the cover plate these were not seen. Did the job.

5. I bought a small diamond wheel flat bed cutter from B & Q for about £20. This was perfectly adequate for the job. The only annoying thing was that the guide restricted cuts to about 7". My tiles were 18" so I had to "reverse cut" quite a few, and sometimes had to make two cuts to get the piece I wanted.

6. I wasn't sure what to use as a top for my unit which housed the toilet, cistern and inset sink. I toyed with a piece of worktop, or using travertine with a butt joint. In the end I found that I could use a standard router (expect to knacker the bits) to put a nice kind of bullnose onto each tile. I left the tops overhanging by about 1cm and the finished look is spot on.

Travertine tiling is not for the feint hearted. It takes time, but the results look way better than standrad ceramics.

Again thankd to who have advised.

Gazz

 

[DHTiling]

Any pics gazz..?..:smilewinkgrin: