Is DOT AND DAB the answer?

[Brad]

Going to be tiling a kitchen splashback and bathroom soon. The client has had all the old tiles removed. There are patches of old addy left on the walls, leaving them quite rough and textured. Taking all the addy off will take a month of sunday's. My thinking is that I prep the walls with a good BAL primer and then go with the "dot and dab" techique for the tile addy, making sure that I don't go too thick. I would also go with a flexible addy because of the fact that I will effectively be building up.

Just how proffesional is the "dot and dab" technique? Should I make sure that the walls are prepped better?

[Alan.P]

Definitely not a good idea mate, prep the walls first, take off the old addy and then use a large notch trowel to get over any small discrepancies or overboard if possible if the walls are that bad, are they plumb ?

[Rav daniels]

no, no, no, defo spend the extra time on prep work, it will come back and bite you in the backside, overboard if you can, otherwise tell the customer the problem, and go on day rate for prep work. in the end it will prob be quicker than dot and dabbing every tile anyway. good luck

[aflemi]

Not recommended at all. BS recommends 60% minimum adhesive contact between tile and wall and I think that is low. Tbh in a splashback situ, safety factors are less but in a bathroom with much more moisture in the air, it could be fatal, falling tiles above bath???
Try soaking the old adhesive with very weak detergent/water and use a heavy duty offset scraper with very sharp replaceable blade, unless its sand/cement, most adhesives will come off or at least enough for you to level with rapidset.

[tile55]

Lots of good advice there, do not DnD as this is not the correct way to tile.
As said before, take off old addy or smooth over with plaster skim or similar, this will give you proper base to work off and it will be much easier to tile.

[Rav daniels]

forgot to say try a steamer and a sharp scaper first for the old addy, usually good method

[lawrenso]

Just look at my thread mate about dot and dab - it is going to cost that tiler a lot of wonga. Hopefully the previous tiler would of PVA'd and the addy will come off with a good sharp scraper (one of those long handle ones like harris do for wallpaper removal - you can get a good whack with them). Or use a steamer.

Do not d+d unless the customer is fully aware - and even then it would be best you didn't

that is my view from the other side of the fence (customer)

Cheers

Steve

[CJ CERAMICS]

the harris scraper is something i use all the time for removing patchy addy perfect for the job.
have used a steamer for removing artex which was on walls works perfect just takes a bit of time and effort but the results are great.

[whitebeam]

Dot and dab a no no

[macten]

If it won't scrape off easy when wet or after steaming then just skim it with a cheap grey rapid set and away you go

[Brad]

Thanks for all the input chaps.....i appreciate your input !!!!

I would just like to throw a curve ball.......

I was chatting to a friend of mine about this whole "dot and dab" story. He has been in the tiling trade for 20 years. I explained the story to him as best i could over the phone. His response was that it would be best to spend time on prepping the walls as you have all suggested. However, he also said that he has had good results using PTB addy on the wall to solve the problem. He said that it is a good addy to go for because of its adhesion strength.

Any thoughts?

[Alan.P]

Have never used PTB but would have thought that the clue was in the name, pourable thick bed don't know how well this would work on a wall, why not go for mapei kerraquick or similar ?