Ceramic tiles on wooden floor

economiser

Has anyone experience of laying ceramic tiles on a suspended wooden floor for kitchen or bathroom please? All advice greatfully received.

SDP

Assuming your floor is plywood sheet or similar (not floorboards) There should'nt be any problem. Reccomend Bal-flex tile adhesive and also a flexible grout.

eye_wink

Dont do it! Our experience is that the slightest movement in the joists means that the wooden floor moves which then causes the tiles to creak when you walk on them.

ohreally

eye_wink wrote:

Dont do it! Our experience is that the slightest movement in the joists means that the wooden floor moves which then causes the tiles to creak when you walk on them.

Did you prepare by sheeting the floor with ply before laying the tiles? If so there shouldn't have been a problem.

uncle_buck_3

My M8 has just tiled his bathroom floor, however he had the luxury of being in the position of being able to rip up & renew his floor before he started to tile it as a couple of the floor joists needed replacing as they had suffered from water damage over the years & weren’t in that good a condition.
He replaced the floor with 1-inch (yes 1 inch) plywood on top of the 7-inch joists!

Asking if it would be ok to tile straight on top of this at the tile suppliers they advised to use a flexible adhesive & a flexible grout as SDP has already advised.
So My M8 went with their recommendations only to find that they supplied a bag of the normal tile adhesive & grout & a bottle of “Flexible additive”!
On close inspection of this “Flexible additive” it appeared to be no more than standard PVA!

So based on this I would advise to use “Standard” floor tile adhesive & add a bit of PVA to the mix. I think the recommended mix ratio of the PVA was 2 to 1….meaning 2 Water to 1 PVA…then just use this mix instead of water when mixing your adhesive / Grout.

I believe that you need to lay at least 9mm or is it 12 (½ inch) ply over your floorboard & securely fastern this down with screws before you start tiling

I stand to be corrected on this by a professional tiler!

Good luck! :think:

innovate

A flooring firm laid tiles 5 years ago in my quite heavily used hallway - 15mm plywood went on top of the original wooden floorboards. The plywood got screwed to the floorboards in 20cm squares, for extra stability. This made the whole area rock-solid, and it was amazing to see (hear!) all the creaking disappear.

They then used flexible adhesive - can't remember the name, but it was a massively expensive specialist adhesive. The grout is just normal grout. The floor looks just as good as it did on the day it was laid, and is ever so easy to keep clean.

I originally wanted underfloor heating but this could only have been done if the old floorboards had been completely replaced by plywood, to gain the extra space needed for the underfloor heating. Since I have good radiators in the hall, I decided against the underfloor heating, and am glad I did, since the floor isn't actually really cold, no problem walking on it barefoot. However, if it was in a bathroom, I would want the floor to be slightly warmer. So for the bathroom, I went with Amtico - fitted to the same principle, i.e. 15mm plywood screwed to the old floorboards in 20cm squares.

Another consideration when you lay tiles is to think about any access you may need to the underfloor area (wiring, plumbing etc) - once the tiles are on, you basically have had it! So get anything and everything done underneath that floor before the plywood/tiles go on!

derrick

Had mine done about 3 years ago, straight onto kitchen floorboards (made sure they where all fixed solid) no probs with any movement, but as mentioned you do need the flexible adhesive and grout.. Best ask a proffessional tiler for advise to be sure, and if possible get them to lay them and guarantee the job in writing

weekendwarrior

Hi,
tiling a wooden floor is easy, just make sure that you board it out with some suitable plywood, found this which may help-
tiling a wooden floor

economiser

Many thanks for the all the advice. I will have to give the project some thought. I think it would probably be risky not to board out the room but this will give me level problems at both doorways so maybe I will have to think of something else. Thanks again all!