How thick do I apply tile adhesive? - TilersForums.co.uk | Tile Forums

01-10-2008

I know, its a stupid question. It must be obvious, because nowhere can I find an answer.
I recently tiled my bathroom and wc, very nice :) But I used adhesive at a far greater rate than the expected coverage guides as per the label.
I am now about to do the rest of the house in a large ceramic tile. I'll be fixing direct to clean flat concrete foundations.
I used Dunlop Resaflex in a premixed tub for the previous rooms, and was thinking of using the same on the rest? I found it wasy to use and I cant see anything on the label to say I cant use it this time. The tiles will be 500x500 ceramic.
Now heres the stupid question. When using a notched trowel (I used 10mm for the floor and 6mm for the walls in the previous room) am I supposed to drag the trowel all the way to floor thereby leaving lines of adhesive and bare floor, or am I to keep the trowel slightly off the floor so the floor is completely covered by adhesive with ridges of extra adhesive?
I wasnt sure the first time around, and as its a flexible adhesive and the tiles were small, I decided more couldnt be bad so I went with the second method. I assume this is why I didnt meet the coverage goals lol.. but should I be leaving stripes of floor exposed when I use less this time as I hope to do, or is that going too far?

**grumpygrouter** · 01-10-2008

Your trowelling technique sounds fine. Make sure you hold the trowel at around 45deg angle. If you don't trowel through to the substrate, you will not know if you have a consistant thickness of adhesive so yes you should see the substrate. On a floor with a 10mm trowel you will only really get around 4m2 per 20kg (bagged) of adhesive.

I am not familier with the Dunlop adhesive you previously used but for floor tiling ( and tiles of the size you quote) pre-mixed tub adhesive is not suitable. You should use a cement based bag adhesive.