Tubbed adhesive

[grumpygrouter]

Interesting topic this especially for DIYers. My opinion is that there is nothing wrong with tubbed stuff if you have the correct substrate and ceramic tiles of an approriate size. Drawback of course is maximum bed thickness and setting time, along with cost effectiveness as powdered stuff can be cheaper per m2 than a good tubbed addy. Only ever used White Star and Ardex D20 and didn't have a problem with either of them....except cleaning the trowel from dried on White Star...forgot to clean it once when I first started tiling and it was a real pain to clean the next morning.......

 

[Wood's better]

Just to clarify to anyone wanting to make there own judgement, the adhesive used in training courses is special Training Adhesive.(usually) It is made to have just enough grab to hold, however, cleans off for the next person to work on the same wall.

 

[Wood's better]

Just to clarify: comments above in reply to Mosaic Girls comments about adhesive during training course.

 

[user123]

Just to clarify to anyone wanting to make there own judgement, the adhesive used in training courses is special Training Adhesive.(usually) It is made to have just enough grab to hold, however, cleans off for the next person to work on the same wall.

Interesting, maybe Darren would confirm either way what was used... He did advise to use powdered adhesive.

 

[TTT]

Mosaic Girl when i trained we used training powdered adhesive which took days to properly go off have no idea who made it though but made easy work of knocking them off the wall.
Bri prep has to be 100% no matter if your using tubbed or powdered addy. Most powder addy is only meant to be built up to 6mm rather be pulling down a wall and putting a nice flat one up to tile to rather than packing out! I remeber reading somewhere fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Always thought that was a good quote.

 

[suave]

Mosaic Girl when i trained we used training powdered adhesive which took days to properly go off have no idea who made it though but made easy work of knocking them off the wall.
Bri prep has to be 100% no matter if your using tubbed or powdered addy. Most powder addy is only meant to be built up to 6mm rather be pulling down a wall and putting a nice flat one up to tile to rather than packing out! I remeber reading somewhere fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Always thought that was a good quote.

bal and weber supply the the college iam at with powdered training adhesive,it it scraped off the wall scooped back into a bucket,add water and its ready to use again,nitemare to scrape off when fully cured

 

[diamondtiling]

Tubbed???

DIY users only.

 

[Stef]

I think this has been a good thread to read up on. we use tubbed adhesive every other day on site, as stated earlier, its the difference between a D1 & a D2 that some people should be concerned about, both are suitable for "a shower application" as stated on some tubs but i would only ever use a D2 in a shower as it wont be broken back down by water ( only up to 300mm square ceramic, white star ) On all the sites we have worked on & a bit of repair work we have carried out i dont think i have ever seen anyone using a powder, its mostly always smaller sized ceramics that are fitted on site.

 

[Stef]

The thumbnails that are up are from a site in east kilbride that we got asked to go to & do a repair on a shower, site agent said it was a cheap tubbed adhesive & grout that was used, the grout had failed badly. this was the 3rd attempt at the repair before we got asked to go & have a look at it.

 

[DHTiling]

That is a megga amount of water ingression...

As a rule now.. i never use a dispersion adhesive on any tiling.. apart from the nice empty buckets it has no use in the domestic market..

 

[Stef]

Dave i know what you mean but if we are on site "labour only" then we can only use what is supplied, its hard enough trying to get them to buy bal white star or mapei D2. dont get me wrong more & more companys are starting to realise that its more than just sticking tiles to a wall!!! as the pictures above, we had tiled the garden flats at the site in east kilbride (about 50/60) showers & not one has failed, job done 5/6 years ago, these were the houses on the site & most of the showers have failed. As soon as you walk in the houses you can smell the dampness in the air. truly shocking!!!!

 

[DHTiling]

I am surprised they shell out for white star when bagged is cheaper and goes further... but as you say.. you are only sticking them on and supplying nothing..

 

[macten]

Used it for kitchen splashbacks. Flat walls, 10x10s then tubbed is ideal.
Won't use it for anything else though.

 

[garybadger]

So are we saying now that tubbed adhesive should be scrapped and therefore be going with the bagged stuff? The problem with that right now in the current climate is cost.
Everyone is cutting their costs but suppliers are being hit with an increase in costs by the couriers etc. I've noticed a difference in the prices I'm having to pay for stuff and indeed one of my suppliers is closing down at the end of the month.
Have went to the builders etc that I do work for and none of them are wanting to pay the extra ££.
I've personally never had a problem with using the tubbed adhesives and as long as you use the correct grout's and Silicon. Everything should be fine!

 

[Time's Ran Out]

The gist of the debate would appear to be to use the appropriate adhesive for the substrate type and the size of tile. Most manufacturers technical information advise that tubbed adhesives are to be restricted to tiles of 300x300mm and below.
As for cost - post26/Dave - I'd agree that it is cost effective to use the bagged adhesive, the only drawback is you have to buy mixing buckets.