Repair Job.

[Keith]

Hi all. Been to see a job today. A kitchen approx 50sq mtr just been tiled. The floor is floorboards with a 3ft drop underneath which has heating pipes in it being fed from a big boiler. The room was very hot from that alone. On top of the floorboards is plywood, then loads of addy then tiles.An area around the stove and units that is the most used, has tiles that are lifting and moving. The tiles are big : 1200mmx600mm ceramic.Having lifted a tile easily,there was very little addy on the tile,and the addy on the board still had the original combing in place so no wonder they were moving.Having tapped the other tiles I found most of them had voids in them. Looking at the ply that overlaid the floor boards it looked like 9mm ply. Don't know if it was even marine ply. The addy was white in places and grey in others .It was bagged stuff but not flexy.the addy in places was up to a depth of 25mm. Couldn't beleive what I was seeing done by a so called pro tiler. The customer said he saw the tiler pouring addy in places, onto the boards and just placing the tiles on it with no trowel movement. He said the addy was runny with no body to it. I could go on. MY intesions are :- Lift the required tiles,clean the ply of old addy,lay 12mm hardie backer board, use a SPF to lay and also back butter the tiles. By the way this is only tempory until the customer has time for me to pull the whole kitchen then I would lay minimum 18mm marine ply and maybe overlay that with 6mm hardie backer board. Any suggestions?

[tfs]

Firstly I would remove all tiles and then remove adhesive from the ply.

I would then ensure that the substrate has as little deflection as possible and if required fix more srews (9mm ply may even be too thin!) I know that many manufacturer reccomend 18mm ply.

If there are any dips in the floor patch level them or slc over full floor if required. This will eliminate need for building adhesive up to crazy heights! If you do not fill dips in floor I would choose a suitable adhesive for building up.

I would use Kerraquick (you can use latex admix for added peice of mind). Apply adhesive to floor and back butter all tiles of if the same size was being used.

[Colour Republic]

How many tiles are you re-doing? How long until you redo the whole floor?

I wouldn't have thought that size tile is cheap so by re-fitting some I'm not sure you would get them up without breaking them.

how much play have you got under the worktops with appliances? i.e can you SLC over the lot and start again?

[CJ]

Trouble is you are JUST patching up duff work, and YOU will be the person they call when others start playing up.

I would not touch it unless they agree to take up the lot and do it right

[basshunter]

sounds like too much flex in the joists.Is it possible to noggin from underneath?

or just reply and stcik with latex plus+keraquick

[Keith]

Would be replacing approx 12 tiles in one area. The customer agrees that that he knows the full floor should be replaced and no comeback on me if it fails.Plenty of room under the work units as plinths are removed. Was only intending to do the job as the carrot is there for the big job.The patch up is only so that his wife can use the area.

[Keith]

By the way, CTD are doing aa deal on 12mm hardie baacker board 1200mmx800mm £7.50+vat.

[Keith]

By the way, I walked away from that repair job. It would be very hard to get the finished tiles something like and would have been hassle all the way. And like you say lads its my reputation at risk. Thanks for all your input , thats why I like this forum.