Hi,

About 2 years ago tiled an external wall at the bottom of the garden ( runs nearly under the fence and is off standard brick construction)

Used 300 X 600 black slate and fitted with BAL grey adhesive + Denlop flexible additive and then grouted using BAL black adhesive (with flexible addative)..

Told tile shop what I wanted to do and the above is what they recomended.

recently with the cold weather have noticed that the grout has cracked and some of the tiles have pulled away from wall ...on looking the adhesive seems to have pulled away from both the wall and the tile...

Is there a more appropriate adhesive / grout to use ..I live in North east of england...

Regards

Ray

how did you fix them Ray? with a serated trowel (solid bed) or spot fix them? My reasoning is that if you spot fixed them, water would have permeated through the grout seeped in behind the tile and adhesive, and as we all know, when water freezes it expands and would pop your tiles off.

as above more info needed ,why did you grout with addy?

Hi Doug,

Must admit I spot fixed them ( only 2 tiles in height - 600 )...was using flat bed but found that the adhesive was not staying stuck after a couple days ..only in garden so applied 5 spots and it held just fine...

So would you recomend pulling off the tiles (20 tiles wide...so only 40 have been used).

And re-doing on a flat bed or covering the brick with something to get better adhession / using smaller tiles...or other ......

Regards

Ray

Originally Posted by gooner59

as above more info needed ,why did you grout with addy?

I didn't spot that one gooner

Originally Posted by gooner59

as above more info needed ,why did you grout with addy?

Sorry did not grout with addy used grey adhesive for sticking with and black grout ( came in the 10 kg bags - powder mixed with flexy addative)

Originally Posted by doug boardley

[/I][/B]
I didn't spot that one gooner

(I just need to think when I am typing .....grout used rather then adhesive ..awefull stuff as well ...

In my opinion Ray, they will all come loose in time, is the wall rendered at all or just bare brick, and is there any paint on the wall?

Originally Posted by doug boardley

In my opinion Ray, they will all come loose in time, is the wall rendered at all or just bare brick, and is there any paint on the wall?

No just bair brick ..no paint .

Confirmed with tile place that this was ok to tile straight onto ...hense the use of the flexi additive..

So should I render / paint or other?

Cheers for the reply's

you'll be ok tiling onto bare brick in my opinion, just make sure it's cleaned well, give it a coat of acryllic primer not PVA, and start again with a solid bed (semi circle notched trowel), don't cross brand your adhesive with another brands additive as they're not always compatible. If you stuggle with getting adhesive to stick to the brick you can always back butter your tiles as well to ensure a good 100% contact

i agree with Doug, did you prepare the last lot of brickwork you know brush down/ or power wash a couple of days before? was it new/or was it very old? think about your substraight first!! good luck

Originally Posted by raycarmody

..I live in North east of england...

Out of interest where in the North East of England are you?

If you're in Sunderland and you need a hand I'm sure I can come and help.... Don't worry I'm not going to charge you

nice one Mark

Originally Posted by gooner59

i agree with Doug, did you prepare the last lot of brickwork you know brush down/ or power wash a couple of days before? was it new/or was it very old? think about your substraight first!! good luck

It was new brick work, the house is new so the wall was built to retain soil from the house behind...so not sure if the wall is taking moisture from the soil behind also....

It was brushed and power washed about a week before.

Originally Posted by united

Out of interest where in the North East of England are you?

If you're in Sunderland and you need a hand I'm sure I can come and help.... Don't worry I'm not going to charge you

Used to live there when younger..but not any more....sunny ashington now..

I should be ok ..thankyou for the offer.. I may take this oppertunity to change the way the wall looks anyway...I have built it around a black limestone patio and built other walls using limestone bricks so the slate seems to blend in too much with the 300 * 600 limestone flags..

Originally Posted by raycarmody

It was new brick work, the house is new so the wall was built to retain soil from the house behind...so not sure if the wall is taking moisture from the soil behind also....

It was brushed and power washed about a week before.

It's a retaining wall, was there any weep holes in the brickwork, are they engineering bricks or standard ones

Originally Posted by whitebeam

It's a retaining wall, was there any weep holes in the brickwork, are they engineering bricks or standard ones

The wall was built by the house builders because of the different levels of the sites..

at the base of the wall is the drainage.

the wall is standard house brick ..there is not any weep holes..but because the drainage is at the base the soil can be slightly water logged.

This could be the problem if the backside of the wall is becoming saturated it will be difficult for it to dry out naturaly as the tiles will be containing the moisture in the wall and also saturating the addy and when freezing will eventualy blow. Idealy the backside of the wall needs excavating a french drain installed and the wall tanked but probably not cost effective.
Lucius.

Originally Posted by lucius

This could be the problem if the backside of the wall is becoming saturated it will be difficult for it to dry out naturaly as the tiles will be containing the moisture in the wall and also saturating the addy and when freezing will eventualy blow. Idealy the backside of the wall needs excavating a french drain installed and the wall tanked but probably not cost effective.
Lucius.

Cheers for the reply

Yea the neighbour would not probably allow me to to that either.

is there any thing I can do to the face of the wall to stop the moisture coming through...or do I need to look at using another method to tiling ...

Cheers

ray

There are tanking products available which would be used on internal walls of basements, i recomend Sika products which should do the job, again its whether its cost effective or not.
Lucius

Originally Posted by lucius

There are tanking products available which would be used on internal walls of basements, i recomend Sika products which should do the job, again its whether its cost effective or not.
Lucius

Ok champion...looks like i have 2 options do something like this or take the tiles off and leave them off...would rather have the tiles ( well would rather not have the wall there ...) ...I assume I can get the sika stuff from a standard builders merchant ..

Check the Sika website out for the sutible product and outlets.
Lucius