1st Job: tiling over karndean for a first timer

[danny-p]

hi all

i have karndean fitted in my kitchen. been down 3 years. i had a leak from dishwasher and the ply under the karndean has blown so i claimed on my insurance and i now have money in hand to replace floor. i had a quote to replace the karndean for £1600 for 16 sq m. this entails removing ply and karndean, re-plying floor and relaying new karndean. i have also been looking at tiles. tiles (600x300) from wickes or b&q are around £300. plus fitting.

i have 2 options. simple. karndean for £1600 or tiling . i want to do the tiling myself for experience and to save money. problems arise after i start looking into the tiling aspect

1. ply and karndean down at moment are only 8mm thick. too thin to tile on???? even though the ply has blown, its still quite flat.

2. kitchen is a knockthrough from a really small kitchen into the back room so now i have a kitchen -diner. but they are 2 types of floor. concrete in one half and floorboards in the other. there is a slope where the concrete finishes and goes into the floorboards. at its worst point at the end of the kitchen its about 3/4" dropout over about 2 metres. i realise i have to build this up to the concrete level. this frightens me as im a novice!!!! lol.

3. all the retrimming of door casings, doors and kickerboards under the units which have led lights in them.

my tool cabinet is only moderate. power tools i have drill, sander and jigsaw.

is it worth paying a pro tiler to do the job. is it beyond a complete novice like myself/

really really appreciate the comments and also any tilers in the merseyside area looking to do it are more than welcome to pm me for a meetup to do the job

dan

[Bri]

Hey up Dan, the ply usually put down for Karndean is 6mm, this is not thick enough for tiling onto, the minimum for tiling to is 15mm. If you have two different substrates (wood and concrete) you will need to have an expansion joint over the join. It does sound like you have quite a job on your hands and a pro tiler might be the way forward but, if you do decide you want to take it on yourself there is a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips on this forum so, ask a 1000 questions if you like, the answers won't be far away!!

[Simmo35]

Try tarvis Perkins they hire pro tile cutter called rubi it would be better than buying a crap one from b&q that would last 2 cuts. As for floor take both up cause of the water damage and replace with 18mm ply screwed down ever 300mm centres. Prim with bal bond then use single part fexi adhesive.

Cheer Benn

[SandyFloor]

The price of the replacement Karndean seems extremely high even with removing the existing stuff. It's usually not necessary to replace all the floor but only the damaged area. If you want to pm me I can put you in touch with a specialist fitter from the Wirral.

[timeless john]

Patch up and go on holiday and still have change for a hovis.