How to safely tile wall above bath with very heavy encaustic cement tiles? - Tile Advice

[Zeddy]

Hopefully you experts can help me out. We have a plumber booked and our friend is a plasterer/decorator and has done a lot of tiling (he did a great job of all our other tiles but he’s never come across the giant tiles we have bought, and I want to be specific about how we fit them!)

We’re doing a total refit of our bathroom and will mostly be tiling in metro tiles, but one wall (along the length of the bath) will have no metro tiles but three rows of Mexican encaustic cement tiles instead.

They’re 20x20cm and 16mm thick and each weigh 1.4kg.
Here’s the link to the retailer’s advice:
Cement Tile Fitting, Sealing and Maintenance - http://besttile.ie/Cement-Tile-Fitting-Sealing-and-Maintenance

The tiles will be fitted along an external brick wall, under a window and on top of the bath, and so far my questions are:

Do we strip off all old tiles and any plasterboard on this wall because it won’t take the weight of these tiles?

Do we use sand/cement to then make good the wall?
Then use something like Hardiebacker?

When do we use a primer (like BAL APD?)

Do we tile straight onto the Hardiebacker?

We use a flexible tile adhesive...but which one?

What type of trowel thing?

How do we ensure they stick well and safely at that weight??

What do we do about that thickness of tile sitting along the back bath rim...pull the bath out a little and baton behind the bath and tile onto that?? We can’t dig channels into the walls for the bath or we’d have no rim left to surface-mount our central taps with such thick tiles!

(I found this bath advice online:
“Firstly put bath in position, level it, make recesses into wall or walls (as its unlikely to find perfect 90 degree walls). Fix bath into position connecting plumbing and waste, fill up bath with water, check if bath is level again, seal around bath to walls with a good quality silicone, tile on top of bath and seal again after grouting. The double sealing reduces the risk of water leaking”)

Please help, I’m clearly a total amateur who needs help to get my guys to do this unusual job right!
Thanks for reading.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

Welcome ( welcome forum) and good luck!
It’s a shame your not contracting a real tiler but perhaps someone will be along soon to provide all the information you require.

 

[Zeddy]

Thanks! He’s the best we can afford with mates rates and all, and we definitely don’t have tiling skills ourselves (we’ve renovated our Victorian house all by ourselves, but we know we aren’t tilers!) In his defence he’s tiled thousands of homes for the council....but they don’t tend to run to snazzy Mexican encaustic cement tiles so he wants to get it right and so do I as we can’t afford a do-over!

 

[Andy Allen]

I'm confused........the questions your asking are quite basic stuff any tiler should know, and as he has tiled thousands of Meters he should know about weight limits, primer, surface prep, trowel size and adhesive..

 

[Dumbo]

I'm confused........the questions your asking are quite basic stuff any tiler should know, and as he has tiled thousands of Meters he should know about weight limits, primer, surface prep, trowel size and adhesive..

Im with you @timeless john . Its not really a recomendation on which i would let someone in my house

 

[Julian 'Farmer' Bonsall]

Zeddy welcome to the forum from a fellow DIY person.

Are the posted questions your questions or the person doing the tiling? Being clear about the concerns and question origins may help you out.

They are weighty/unit area - ~35kg/m2 + ~4kg for the cements.

 

[Flintstone]

Why not hire a tiler instead of a decorator? And save yourself having to go online to tell him how to do the job ?

 

[Zeddy]

Ok thanks anyway.

And Julian they’re my questions (so I can buy all the right stuff and do all the right prep before my friend who has done a lot of tiling takes over) I’ll be paying him and helping him; I’m just a broke mum trying to get my bathroom done on a shoestring after 5yrs of using a jug...I sourced some beautiful tiles which are apparently much harder to put up well than regular tiles, and so I thought I’d ask some advice from people with expertise so me and my friend can do the job right.

I didn’t realise this was a pros only place, I’ll find a diy site instead.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

It’s not just for Professional tilers, there is a DIY section in the forum that may be better for your needs.
Try asking lots of little questions to get the final solutions in separate posts. (After all we are just tilers)
That way it won’t seem so daunting a project for us to help you with.

 

[Julian 'Farmer' Bonsall]

@Zeddy I introduced myself as a fellow DIY'er. There is a forum section here - DIY Tiling Forum - https://www.tilersforums.com/forums/diy-tiling-forum.163/ which you can see by clicking 'forums' at the top of most pages or my link.

Maybe an admin could move the thread for you.

I can say after reading many many hrs worth of this forum, and also getting advice myself its one of the very best, and honest (may not always like the answers) forums I have come across.

I asked who were the questions for because if this is a tiler asking them the concern would be that they may not be upto the job.

The comment Localtiler made was out of concern for you.

Do you have some images of your project and any sketches of this feature wall to show where the tiles will fit? This bath of yours, plumbing etc. This will help with some of your questions.

Given the weights of the tiles your are thinking correctly about ensuring the right system is used to connect them to your brick wall.

The site also has sponsors (such as Hardibacker) who do respond and help (various have helped me a lot to resolve specific queries quickly) and it is full of expertise. It would seem a little illogical for me to try and answer.

Look forward to some photos.

 

[Zeddy]

@Zeddy I introduced myself as a fellow DIY'er. There is a forum section here - DIY Tiling Forum - https://www.tilersforums.com/forums/diy-tiling-forum.163/ which you can see by clicking 'forums' at the top of most pages or my link.

Maybe an admin could move the thread for you.

I can say after reading many many hrs worth of this forum, and also getting advice myself its one of the very best, and honest (may not always like the answers) forums I have come across.

I asked who were the questions for because if this is a tiler asking them the concern would be that they may not be upto the job.

The comment Localtiler made was out of concern for you.

Do you have some images of your project and any sketches of this feature wall to show where the tiles will fit? This bath of yours, plumbing etc. This will help with some of your questions.

Given the weights of the tiles your are thinking correctly about ensuring the right system is used to connect them to your brick wall.

The site also has sponsors (such as Hardibacker) who do respond and help (various have helped me a lot to resolve specific queries quickly) and it is full of expertise. It would seem a little illogical for me to try and answer.

Look forward to some photos.

Thanks Julian, will pop over there this evening and ask around. We don’t start ripping out till the end of month so no photos yet, but yeah, I can cobble together a crap sketch of the plan...I have a 3D moveable room plan on my pc but it’s useless as a screengrab!

I guess the only thing I really need to know ASAP is about the best wall prep I can do for such heavy tiles, sand-cement render (roughened for adhesion or smooth?) or Hardibacker or...something else.

 

[Time's Ran Out]

I’d prime the brickwork, adhesive stick Jakoboard/Wedi and mechanically fix through to substrate. Will provide a bit of insulation, waterproof surface that can then take the weight of those tiles.