Adhesive not sticking

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Adhesive not sticking

Discuss Adhesive not sticking in the Tile Adhesive / Grout Advice area at TilersForums.com.

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GemmaWells88

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Good evening everyone I’m wondering if you can offer a little bit of advice if possible.

We have recently completed an extension to our existing house and opted to go for 60x60 polished porcelain tiles in part of the old and all of the new House.

They were installed in October last year and underneath is a piped UFH system. The UFH system was commissioned about 6 weeks after the tiles were laid.

An incident happened where I turned the thermostat off after the floor had cooled about 10 degrees and just turned it back on without thinking yet would affect the flooring.

Slowly the tiles have started to pop/burst/move slightly. Whilst on holiday we asked the tiler to look at what was going on with the flooring, he states that he pulled some of the tiles up and the adhesive wasn’t stuck to them, not only was it not stuck to the tiles it wasn’t stuck to the chipboard either.

Can anyone advise why this is?? The make up of the floor is as follows:
Joists 300mm apart
100mm Kingspan between joists
Plated pipe UFH system
22mm chipboard
Primed with PVA/water mix
Ultra tile fibre fix fx powder mid adhesive
Porcelain tiles

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Gemma
 
C

Chris N

TF
50
268
Nuneaton
GemmaWells88 said:
View attachment 99590 View attachment 99591 View attachment 99592 View attachment 99593 View attachment 99594 Good evening everyone I’m wondering if you can offer a little bit of advice if possible.

We have recently completed an extension to our existing house and opted to go for 60x60 polished porcelain tiles in part of the old and all of the new House.

They were installed in October last year and underneath is a piped UFH system. The UFH system was commissioned about 6 weeks after the tiles were laid.

An incident happened where I turned the thermostat off after the floor had cooled about 10 degrees and just turned it back on without thinking yet would affect the flooring.

Slowly the tiles have started to pop/burst/move slightly. Whilst on holiday we asked the tiler to look at what was going on with the flooring, he states that he pulled some of the tiles up and the adhesive wasn’t stuck to them, not only was it not stuck to the tiles it wasn’t stuck to the chipboard either.

Can anyone advise why this is?? The make up of the floor is as follows:
Joists 300mm apart
100mm Kingspan between joists
Plated pipe UFH system
22mm chipboard
Primed with PVA/water mix
Ultra tile fibre fix fx powder mid adhesive
Porcelain tiles

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Gemma
Click to expand...

Whoever advised you was not a tiler Gemma! Chipboard, PVA...not good.
 
C

Chris N

TF
50
268
Nuneaton
GemmaWells88 said:
So does it have nothing to do with the heating?? I had been advised it was something called thermal burst?? Could this be a possibility or not??
Click to expand...

Ufh or not, it would have still failed, so don't worry about what you mentioned in your first post...it is not your fault.

Who tiled it? Was it a tiler or or or another tiler, who really isn't a tiler, but has done a bit of tiling, in their bathroom back in 1970? Using PVA, tends to make me think it was an older person.
 
S

Spare Tool

impish said:
I don't have the time to explain it all, but trust me: everything that could be wrong with the job has been done!

Chipboard+UFH+possibly floating = failure
PVA = failure
No back-buttering on large format = failure
Not 100% coverage = failure
Air gaps in the adhesive bed+ufh = failure.

It is 100% not the adhesive's fault.
Click to expand...
Take the other factors out of the equation and tell me you'd have used a C2 adhesive on wood and ufh? ...course its partly down to the adhesive Mark
 
O

One Day

Andystiletiling said:
Take the other factors out of the equation and tell me you'd have used a C2 adhesive on wood and ufh? ...course its partly down to the adhesive Mark
Click to expand...

You're right Andy, I would use S1 minimum on anything heated, but the original claim was that the adhesive wasn't sticking to the tiles.
C2 will definitely stick to porcelain IF the other things had been addressed.

Heck, they could have used BAL fastflex and it would still likely have failed due to the PVA, dusty chipboard and trowel technique!
 
O

One Day

Your floor tile failure was caused by the following factors.
Individually they could have caused failure, but combined it was a certainty.

Chipboard floor - can be tiled onto but only with very special adhesives and with 100% coverage to tile and floor.

Heated floor - can be tiled easily enough but must have an uncoupling membrane such as Schluter Ditra, to separate the adhesive bed and tiles from the expansion/contraction stresses caused by the heating - as seen readily in the adhesive cracks in your photos.

PVA - simply put, this forms a skin and prevents (not aids) adhesion.
Acrylic primers, or SBR only should be used.

C2 adhesive has polymer added to bond to porcelain (standard sand and cement won't bond) but does not have anywhere near enough polymer to increase the flexibility required for a heated, timber floor.

Timber Floor - if your floor is "floating" as I suspect it is, then 90% of professional tilers will just walk away from them. There is just too much risk of movement, both deflection (bounce) and lateral (sideways) movement. They can be tiled. but not without a lot of prep, careful checking and special materials.

Tiles aren't back-buttered. - It is recommended that large format tiles, particularly with waffle backs, are back-buttered with a thin layer of adhesive to aid "bedding in" and ensuring a solid, even bond. It also removes any risk from tiles with dusty backs.

Hope that helps explain what has gone wrong!
 

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