Living room floor

**Mike H** · 01-09-2008

Hi there,

I'm a diy-er attempting to tile my living room floor. The house is a new build and has wooden floors (not T&G, I persume its's chip-board?). Would you recommend ply boarding over it or will a flexible adhesive be OK going straight onto the chip-board?
Thanks in advance.

**groucho** · 01-09-2008

Whats the floor like in regards to deflection? put a glass of water down and have a bit of a dance round it. see what the water does. I tend to be a belt and braces man myself. You only get one chance to prepare the floor so do it right.

**CCTiling** · 01-09-2008

Hi mate. The only adhesive I would use is Bal Fastflex to tile straight onto chipboard floors. If you want to use a spf then the only guarantee is the fix 18mm ply to the existing floor. Good luck

**Mike H** · 02-09-2008

Cheers for replying,
there is a little bit of deflection, would it still be ok to use Bal Fastflex, like CCTILING suggests? The wife doesn't want the step that adding 18mm ply would create!

**Dave** · 03-09-2008

If this is a new build then it is more than likley a floating floor and IMO should not be tiled...some will tile them but personally i wouldn't......this type of subfloor is asking for a failure to happen.....

even with fast-flex the floor needs to solid and floating floors are deffo not that.......after a period of time ( foot traffic) the kingspan base that the floor is laid on gives a bit and then the movement occurs.....

**Mike H** · 03-09-2008

In that case would you recommend ply boarding the whole area (21 sqm)? And if so would I have to use 18mm or would 12mm or even 9mm be suffice in order to minimise the step as much as possible?