Preparing a wooden floor for tiling

[mckean2]

Hi all,

I was wondering if you can help. I'm taking on my first tiling project to tile my kitchen floor and keep reading different advice on different websites so was hoping you all may be able to give the best advice!

I'm tiling my floor to improve the surface and also to stop smells (cigarette) coming up from my neighbour downstairs. My current floor is 10 year old victorian floorboards which don't see too bumpy (i haven't taken up the current laminate but it seems quite smooth with only thin mesh type underlay) but the floor does slope to one side of the room.

My query is how i prepare the floor for tiling. i've read lots about plywood, cement backer board, self leveling compound but don't really know what is best to give a flat surface. Some websites are suggesting 9mm ply, then backbaord, some just 12mm ply, others 18mm ply, others 12mm ply with self leveling!! i.e. i'm totally confused!!

Any advice on what you think would be best would be very much appreciated. My main concerns are:
- creating a level surface over old floor boards
- creating a thorough seal between my kitchen and downstiars to stop smell coming through
- not creating a big step between the hall way and kitchen (although this will be mininal in the future as i plan to put down engineered wooden flooring which will raise the level in the hall)

Any advice would be great!

Nicola

[leeroy brown]

Hi there,
Personally i would use 12 - 18mm Ply screwed down in a grid patteren @ 150mm centres.IMOP anyway.Other people may tell you different but thats what i would use.

Hope this helps

[chille]

Hi Nicola,

You need to check the condition of your floor 1st basically trying to determine if there is bounce in the floor if all is nice and firm replace any damaged floor boards and make sure the entire floor is firmly fixed to the joists ( be carefull of just putting screws in there may be pipes and cables underneath).

Using a flexible cement based adhesive stick 6mm no more ply down make sure to stagger the joints, then using 25mm screws fix it to the floor boards at 200mm centres.

Then allow a day to dry and you are ready for tiling.

[whitebeam]

Don't know if you rent but check any landlords rules with laying tiles in a flat because of sound traveling to the flat underneath..

You can get sound proofing to lay on the floor to lower the decibels.

[Mike]

i'd fill the voids full of rockwool too to prevent smells and soundproof