Hi all, once my shower tray has been fitted, I will be tiling the shower area and walls with ceramic tiles. I will have no problems doing this, but I have never tiled a bathroom floor before and would like some help in the preparation before tiling. The floor area will be approx 4m x 2m and at the moment there are tongue and groove floorboards secured onto joists approx 30cm apart. I have not picked any floor tiles yet and would like to hear your recommendations and any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks Rob

those floor boards will need overboarding, if they're solid (no deflection/bounce) you will get away with just cement boards , laid with spf and screwed but if there's any deflection they would need overboarding with mim. 15mm ply and 6mm cement board over. that would raise the floor considerably so another alternative is to replace the whole floor with 25mm ply and 6mm cement boards. but first strenghthen the joists with noggins/dwangs. i would recommend you 'tank' the walls in the shower area.

Cheers Mike, there is no deflection in the floor and I did not really want to raise the floor level too high. Does it have to be 15mm ply as I don't want a high step up into the bathroom. Also what does spf mean.

Cheers Rob

Originally Posted by robinf147

Cheers Mike, there is no deflection in the floor and I did not really want to raise the floor level too high. Does it have to be 15mm ply as I don't want a high step up into the bathroom. Also what does spf mean.

Cheers Rob

You'll get away with 10mm cement boards then, spf is single part flexible adhesive, don't forget about tanking the walls
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As above. Check with the manufacturer of the boards as some recommend a tile adhesive is used to fill the voids under the boards before you screw them down and others recommend an expanding glue.

The most important thing to do though is to get rid of any bounce in the floor before you over board.

Plywood floors...


Here is a link to a post from a while back about tiling onto wooden floors and the importance of the correct prep.