Hi all, has anyone worked in spain or any other hot countries? I am trying to find out what would be a reasonable drying time for a 100mm sand and cement screed on a roof terrace exposed to the sun with temperatures of 25 + degrees

My mum has just had her roof terrace re tiled they screeded it (with 5+1 sharp sand +cement with a waterproof additive, and a very wet mix, see pics ) on a Wednesday and tiled it on the Thursday/Friday sticking it down with Cementocola.

Now i'm no expert on tiling in Spain but with 27 years experience in the UK i think a drying time of "overnight" is totally inadequate.

Any thoughts guysmums terrace 1.jpgmums terrace 2.jpg

I get what your saying but think of it this way that a screed in that heat and left uncovered would dry fast, tiling it quickly would allow the screed to cure..

It's the same when tiles are bedded onto sand/cement, it has a slow curing time and set hard..if your ever had to take them up you will see what I mean.

the screed look's way to wet, more like mortar , it also look's a very strong mix sand to cement, and they could have put polythene over the top and kept it moist underneath , if a screed is to wet it can suffer massive shrinkage, our standard's now stipulate that, the screed is left to cure before tiling, but as beam said above it's spain!!! we tile manyarner

Originally Posted by whitebeam

I get what your saying but think of it this way that a screed in that heat and left uncovered would dry fast, tiling it quickly would allow the screed to cure..

It's the same when tiles are bedded onto sand/cement, it has a slow curing time and set hard..if your ever had to take them up you will see what I mean.

I've tiled plenty of floors in the old days with a cement slurry on a semi dry screed
more recently i have tiled a Lidl store on a semi dry screed with dry cement powder and a vibrating roller and they all bond together perfectly.
But the roof terrace was stuck down a day later so the screed is neither wet or semi dry or cured and whilst you can tile on "green screed" with BAL Green Screed & the likes
the terrace was stuck down with just a standard flexi adhesive, which we are advised in the UK to only use on a fully dried screed. So although its much hotter in Spain surely the screed was not fully dried considering how wet it looks in the pics
I'm just worried that the tiling will debond at some point in the near future

Surprised you didn't get the chance to do it for your Mum on a busman's holiday.
Mind you with their unemployment figures she most likely got it done at a good price.

Originally Posted by The hammer

I've tiled plenty of floors in the old days with a cement slurry on a semi dry screed
more recently i have tiled a Lidl store on a semi dry screed with dry cement powder and a vibrating roller and they all bond together perfectly.
But the roof terrace was stuck down a day later so the screed is neither wet or semi dry or cured and whilst you can tile on "green screed" with BAL Green Screed & the likes
the terrace was stuck down with just a standard flexi adhesive, which we are advised in the UK to only use on a fully dried screed. So although its much hotter in Spain surely the screed was not fully dried considering how wet it looks in the pics
I'm just worried that the tiling will debond at some point in the near future

I used to do the Aldi, Lidl, and Netto stores, always semi-dry screed and slurry (power vibration system) from about 20 years ago to 5 years ago, all still solid. Never peppered though ( dry OPC scattered on top of semi-dry screed) always slurry.

Did over 80 stores nation wide average 1,100 M2 per store. by my reckoning getting on to 90,000 M2, as I still travel I call into stores we did all over the country, not seen one failure yet.

90,000 m2 thats some dough Phil,
We only done the peppered cement on one job in East Kilbride cos thats what the Italian Tilers had done and thats what the contractor wanted
The Italian boys were working for buttons and they had a fall out with the contractor so we were asked to finish off the floor.
I also done an Aldi up in Elgin but that was stick down about 1100m2, horrible tiles aint they big thick heavy buggers

Hammer the Aldi and Lidl tiles were 150x150 Buchtal (Agrob) flame yellow, awful tiles to look at, and very sharp edges, shredded fingers and all that.

We had 8/9 days to complete the 1,100 M2 floors including skirtings safe plinths, bucket sinks, etc. 25 ton of ready mix per day hard work, but good pay

theres a few cracked tiles in the glasgow stores,horrible tiles,probably stuff dropped on them though

Originally Posted by Phil Hobson

Hammer the Aldi and Lidl tiles were 150x150 Buchtal (Agrob) flame yellow, awful tiles to look at, and very sharp edges, shredded fingers and all that.

We had 8/9 days to complete the 1,100 M2 floors including skirtings safe plinths, bucket sinks, etc. 25 ton of ready mix per day hard work, but good pay

Phil, We used the 200x200mm version in Elgin and me and another tiler & 1 labourer finished in 10 days including all the staff areas done in ceramics & i thought that was good but 8/9 days with sand & cement there must have been a dozen of you at least lol

Suave is that the one on High St ? my mate done that 1 for Tilecraft

Anyway back to the original thread,

I emailed the builder that done the screeding & tiling to the terrace with my concerns about the wetness of the screed & the drying times.

He assures me that this is the way things are done in Spain & THE OLD CHESTNUT "Ive been doing this for 8 years and never had a problem

He says that the screed has to be soaking wet or it will just turn to powder

Also the screed was dry the next morning and all shrinkage had occcured

So there you have it CASE CLOSED lol