Why bother with slc

[Phil Hobson]

I hope this in the right forum, yesterday I spent about 5 hours prepping a kitchen floor with slc. I managed to get it super flat, today I started tiling using a 300x300 un-calibrated split slate, supplied by the customer, sourced from a company who's name begins with W.

This slate varied in thickness from 20mm to 5mm, (in some cases in one tile). So after having my mate grade the slate into four groups, very thick, medium thick, thick to thin, and very thin. I managed to lay a fairly lip free floor, but the overall flatness of the finished floor is probably worse than before I laid the slc.

I think Dave will understand where I am coming from, after a PM last night. I just wondered if if anyone else on here has experienced this type of slate, ( gave it a 10mm joint btw). Hey- ho, if tiling was easy everyone would be doing it. Then again are they?

[Dave]

LOL.. I wouldn't have bothered SLC'g it phil.. thick bed addy and away you go, nowt to this tiling lark..

Told it was top notch slate from Wickes.

[doug boardley]

I rarely bother with slc when I'm using uncalibrated stone Phil

[Sean fsy]

sounds like the slate you can get from b and q aswell, done one last month and it was the same about 15mm difference.

[nybor62]

have had some probs with variations with slate , but not has bad as what you have just laid.

[Phil Hobson]

[QUOTE]

LOL.. I wouldn't have bothered SLC'g it phil.. thick bed addy and away you go, nowt to this tiling lark..

Told it was top notch slate from Wickes.[/QUOTE

I thought people might think it was Woolworths

[Dave]

As long as it wasn't like bananas then it would just be testing your skills and not your patience..

[Phil Hobson]

Dave it was like bananas Too

[SandyFloor]

Did one like that a few years ago. Took twice as long as a ceramic and used about two and half times the addy. Thankfully customer was supplying all materials but think they thought I was nicking it. Nah, slc waste of time in those cases.

[Dave]

ooops..

You need a drink then.

[hillhead]

I'v seen some marble lately with ridiculous differences too and off square !!
No wonder dot and dabbing is still used in quite a few countries Phil.

[Stewart]

Shame to have covered over the perfectly prepped floor. I would have skipped the slc......

[Phil Hobson]

Did one like that a few years ago. Took twice as long as a ceramic and used about two and half times the addy. Thankfully customer was supplying all materials but think they thought I was nicking it. Nah, slc waste of time in those cases.

The big joke here is the kitchen fitter had priced the job, he intended doing the floor himself. He had done the walls already, then he realised they had gone for this very bad slate, so asked me to step in. He had priced the job on a ceramic/ porcelain tile, he wanted me to lay the slate for the same price. WRONG!....................

[Daz]

This thread has cheered me up - NOT!
I'm doing a bathroom floor with the 300 x 300 uncalibrated slate on Thursday .

I did kitchen / diner with 60 x 40 slate that was similarly uneven last January, too. I just used a thick bed pourable addy, no point in bothering with slc when using stones that are so badly calibrated.

[whitebeam]

A mate got some off e-bay once, holy moses

[Mike]

i did a b & q uncalibrated slate floor a few months ago, same problem with such variances in thicknesses. shame as the floor was really flat to start (backer boards) the kitchen was on a slight gradient as it was an old cottage so i used the thick tiles at the lower part of the kitchen and the thinner at the higher part and used the 'bananas' under were the units were going

[ozboz]

I use to do lots of slate in Aus, chinese and indian stuff,never used slc, but did grade them, aways kept the thin and wedge shaped ones for cuts and always 10 mm joint,

[andy8758]

I love those slates that vary so much in thickness. Real rustic. Like me. Lol!

[pjc]

Phill when they get bigger 600 X 600 those baby ones look like a rectified tile lol

[widler]

i just laid some 600x600 in my daughters house(photos on here),got them off,cough cough,e bay,but a bargin at 12.50 m2. but the varid in thickness,started at one end with the thick ones and worked that way,with the bad ones under units.still looked fine though

and also we all know you get lips on riven,its impossible not to

[IvegotsTILE]

I laid some wickes ones the other day,I slc aswell god knows why lol

[wayne]

just laid approx 100sqm riven slate opus pattern from china. all 600x400 were wavy and the rest werent too much better. all different sizes as well. customer paid about 13 pound a sqm off the net

[Rich]

The job Im on now I tiled the wetroom with slate from ebay, she went and looked in tile giant and fell in love with the slate, thinking she was clever went and "got the same thing for half the price" on ebay and then couldnt work out why it looked rubbish, had no colour to it like the tile giant stuff and were different sizes

Then to make up for the total lack of colour she went and bought some dirty great fire red ceramics to tile in as a border with this 300x300 slate, Im going to stick some pics up of it in the next week or so as it looks horrid!!

This was all tiled over slc as it was over ufh but didnt make the tiling any easier, to make things even better she didnt order extra tiles to save money