Advice on laying 2ft Porcelain tiles

[chilli_dub]

As a favour for a friend ive recently taken on tiling his bathroom. Which wouldnt normally pose any sort of problem. I was on the assumption it would be your normal ceramic tiles and maybe a mosaic border or something similar. However it turns out there great big 2ft x 1ft porcelain tiles that are 10mm thick. These will be layed floor to ceiling.

They are going to be put onto a recently dabbed out room, so the walls are quite flat and plum. My real concern is finding an adhesive with adequate strenth and adhesion to keep them on the wall! What do you guys recommend? Whats best to use to cut them, as i dont think my little wet wheel cutters going to be up to much.

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

[oogabooga]

Don't know what a "dabbed out" room is, but others will be by to sort that.

As far as adhesive, a good quality modified (flexible) cement based addy should be fine (Mapei, Bal etc). With large porcelain especially I'd recommend "burning" a skimcoat of addy onto the back of the tile as well as notching the wall (or burning the wall and notching the tile if you prefer). Pull the odd tile after setting to check what coverage you're getting underneath, you'll soon get the hang of how much addy to use. Try an 8 or 10mm notched trowel depending on how flat the walls truly are.

I understand your apprehension, tiles these days just keep getting bigger and bigger, 600x600mm is common, and now 800x800 & 800x1200 are starting to appear

Maybe your friend could do you a favor and hire a big wetsaw

[chilli_dub]

Thanks for the heads up. By dabbed out i mean, recently had plasterboards dabbed (glued) to all the walls. This is another concern of mine, will the plasterboard handle such weight? These tiles are seriously weighty.

[lawrenso]

Hi Chilli Dub,

after having a botch job done in our Bathroom with 600*300 Porc's I can highly recommend using the larger notch. The tiler who done ours used a 6mm or less notch. The slightest irregularity knock it out of line as there is no bed to ride the tile over the imperfections. Make sure you check the walls with a long straight edge and fill out any hollows more than 2-3mm deep depending on the notch. Hopefully you won't be doing a Brickbond pattern as that could be painfull for you.

And above all, if a tile is not on quite right, remove it and re-lay it, as it will only take you longer trying to adjust for it further up. Also, make sure you have a full bed and do not be tempted to pack out using the Dot and Dab method.

Steve

[chilli_dub]

Hi Chilli Dub,

after having a botch job done in our Bathroom with 600*300 Porc's I can highly recommend using the larger notch. The tiler who done ours used a 6mm or less notch. The slightest irregularity knock it out of line as there is no bed to ride the tile over the imperfections. Make sure you check the walls with a long straight edge and fill out any hollows more than 2-3mm deep depending on the notch. Hopefully you won't be doing a Brickbond pattern as that could be painfull for you.

And above all, if a tile is not on quite right, remove it and re-lay it, as it will only take you longer trying to adjust for it further up. Also, make sure you have a full bed and do not be tempted to pack out using the Dot and Dab method.

Steve

Okay, thanks for the info. Have followed your thread on your bathroom, certainly not the kind of work i want to be reputed for. I will invest in a 10-12mm notched trowel for the job. I have primed the plasterboards several times to help adhesion. Would this be a suitable adhesive for the job?

http://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod2939/section172/Bal-Rapidset-Flexible-Grey-20KG.html

Thanks!

[enduro]

My biggest concern would be the weight of tiles on the wall, will the plasterboard take that weight 32kg/sqm maximum? Also you will need an adhesive that is porcelbond, i would use a 10mm trowel and back skim the tiles, and you will need a good cutter like a Rubi TX700.

[lawrenso]

I can't recommend an adhesive to you - there are far better on here for that and BAL seems to be falling out of favour a little bit. Bear in mind your grout - if they want white - best go for a white. If not, CTD do some stuff that is basically BAL in another bag - PROFIX I think it is called, for a lot less than BAL, but not available in White that I can find anyway.

For a cutter some people are recommending the Big Clinker that is @80 from Topps or Screwfix but putting a big Ruby wheel on it for Porcelain.

For the Notch, just remember the bigger the notch, the more the weight per sqM. Would say start with an 8 if the walls are good as suggested above and see how you go - any kicking away from the surface, remove and continue with a 10 - but that is my DIY approach

Steve

[cornish_crofter]

Steve

Profix fast setting spf. CTD were doing it for £8.19 per bag on promotion in my area. Not sure what the price is now.

This is excellent stuff for what you want. I fixed b&Q prcelain on the floor with this stuff in a wetroom, plus I used it for some wall tiles when I ran out of the white star. TBH I wished I had just used this for the whole bathroom.

I also used it to bed down the wetroom former. It was EPS (very hard expanded polystirene). the former felt like concrete when the adhesive had gone off!

Be aware though, that it sets in about 45 mins, which doesn't give you much working time to get the tiles positioned correctly, so you need to be organised.

You may like to think about this. A longer working time adhesive may suit you better.

Oh, and a cutter? Straight cuts you can't beat the Rubi TS 60 plus. For intricate cuts or 45° cuts, I would use a decent wet saw. If this is a one off and you don't think you will get many of these you could invest in a half decent topps cutter or similar.

[enduro]

Steve

Profix fast setting spf. CTD were doing it for £8.19 per bag on promotion in my area. Not sure what the price is now.

This is excellent stuff for what you want. I fixed b&Q prcelain on the floor with this stuff in a wetroom, plus I used it for some wall tiles when I ran out of the white star. TBH I wished I had just used this for the whole bathroom.

I also used it to bed down the wetroom former. It was EPS (very hard expanded polystirene). the former felt like concrete when the adhesive had gone off!

Be aware though, that it sets in about 45 mins, which doesn't give you much working time to get the tiles positioned correctly, so you need to be organised.

You may like to think about this. A longer working time adhesive may suit you better.

Oh, and a cutter? Straight cuts you can't beat the Rubi TS 60 plus. For intricate cuts or 45° cuts, I would use a decent wet saw. If this is a one off and you don't think you will get many of these you could invest in a half decent topps cutter or similar.

I would like to see a TS 60 plus cut 10mm porcelain!!!!

[faithhealer]

I would like to see a TS 60 plus cut 10mm porcelain!!!!

Agree, I invested in the tx700

[Rav daniels]

never had a problem with my ts 60 cutting 10mm porc, with the right scoring wheel, granted they have to be a decent size cut though.

[chilli_dub]

Well thanks for all the helpful replies folks! This kinda job will probably be a one off. My little wet wheel cutter and straight cutter are fine for 99% of the kitchens and bathroom work i do.

I will suggest that he purchases some cement based adhesive, probably one part rapid flex bal and a 10mm notched trowel. Although the walls are quite good they do run out slightly in places. He will also need to hire a heavy dutter wet wheel cutter for cuts round the window etc.

Anything else anyone can think of so im definately prepared? As for grout we were going to use white ultracolor plus using 2mm grout lines.

[Alan.P]

Anything else anyone can think of so im definately prepared? As for grout we were going to use white ultracolor plus using 2mm grout lines.

Only for the dot and dabbed walls, it would be a good idea to second fix them with a decent size screw into whatever surface they are onto so as your not relying on the board addy to hold the board to the wall, can only help

[whitebeam]

If you use fixings don't break the surface paper or they will be next to useless and only fix where the dabs of adhesive are otherwise you could get a bow in the board

[cornish_crofter]

I would like to see a TS 60 plus cut 10mm porcelain!!!!

90° cuts, no problem!

I was using it on the B&Q porcelain, but I got a handful of waste porcelain tiles from Topps where I bought it from and tried it on them as well.

And I managed to cut down the 600mm length as well.

The only difficulty I had was 45° cuts. I could score them and knock them on the rails but risked breaking the smaller piece. As I was tiling a wet room former I wanted to keep both pieces so the wet cutter was used here.

[doug boardley]

I would like to see a TS 60 plus cut 10mm porcelain!!!!

it will cut porcelain, just not in a straight line lol