what trowel?

[groucho]

hui guys just a quickie got unfilled trave to fix this week wondering what best trowel? I thought thin bed solid bed 6mm but if walls are not flat etc so 20mm round notch? this is for a shower/bath area. but half the bathroom dry area as such so was going to use standard 6mm. cheers

[Phil Hobson]

I allways do a test on 1st tile, See what gives you nearest to solid bed. Also back butter tile

[Alan.P]

What size tile ? and I would go for what ever gives 100% min 8mm very minimum imho, if the walls are perfect.

[kilty55]

6mm wd be too small for heavy trav but thats just my opinion and youd needa perfect wall(do they exist) id opt for 8mm minimum better with 9 or 10mm

[whitebeam]

8-10mm, any bigger the walls may need a bit of prep

[Daz]

If anything other than mosaic I would be using either an 8 or 10mm and back skimming the tiles too. If mosaic then I would probably use a 6mm and squeeze the tiles in with an epoxy grout float.

You don't mention what the substrate is, I hope it is unskimmed plasterboard (tanked in the wet area) or a combination of plasterboard and cement boards (for the wet area), due to weight issues.

[groucho]

sorry lads forgot to mention size of tile. they are just 150 x 75 walls are solid and been skimmed

[Daz]

sorry lads forgot to mention size of tile. they are just 150 x 75 walls are solid and been skimmed

A square metre of these is likely to exceed the recommended weight for skimmed plaster, especially when you add 4kg per sqm for adhesive and grout. I'm not sure that I would want to be fixing these to a skimmed wall .

Take a look here..http://www.thetilesource.co.uk/wall-...-square-metre/

[whitebeam]

Trav at 10mm will be about 32kg with adhesive, any thicker will exceed the wieght for plasterboard let alone skimmed plaster.

[groucho]

i advised getting walls skimmed over they were a bit naff here and there. at that time customer was having 30x25 ceramics then changd their minds to trave after plastering done. apparantly the plasterer has strengthed the walls by putting some sort of mesh background on first. what i dont know. bit stuck now dont know what to do

[whitebeam]

The only mesh I can think of is scrim or eml, the latter not being used for scimming.

You will have to have a chat with the customer and explain that there is a problem with the tile weight, not your fault and give them a choice for getting tiles that are a bit lighter.

[groucho]

yes i think this will pee them off big time but i will explain. i dont think the tiles were right for the area being unfilled trave. what happens if they say go ahead?? argh

[whitebeam]

Then thats your choice and there's, if they insist then get something in writing and signed but have it written that you explained the weight issues.

Cover your back though

[lucius]

You can reinforce finish plaster with fibreglass mesh it comes in meter wide rolls and we use it a lot on older houses with movement on them where the customer wont pay for the lime route but it is only to help stop cracking and wont help your weight issues
Lucius