vinyl floor over tiles

jen1301

in out bathroom we have horrible tiles on the floor. As vinyl is fairly cheap we thought it would be a nice way to update the room fairly quickly and cheaply.

I realised that vinyl can't be laid straight over tiles but we unsure as to what would be the best way to prepare the floor?

A think sheet of plywood or a self levelling screed to fill in the areas of grout.

Ripping the tiles up is not an option.

I would appreciate any advice you may have.

Thanks

arbrighton

It would be best to remove the tiles. Why is it not an option?

I wouldn't use self levelling screed on top of existing floor- it's meant to be used on top of base i.e screed

Norman_Castle

A think sheet of plywood

Would that be medium as its a combination of thick and thin?.

jen1301

arbrighton wrote: »

It would be best to remove the tiles. Why is it not an option?

I wouldn't use self levelling screed on top of existing floor- it's meant to be used on top of base i.e screed

We do not want to rip the tiles up as it would make it a much longer/harder job that we don't have the time for at the moment.

jen1301

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Would that be medium as its a combination of thick and thin?.

Well that was helpful.....

arbrighton

jen1301 wrote: »

We do not want to rip the tiles up as it would make it a much longer/harder job that we don't have the time for at the moment.

Well you have two options then
1) live with the tiles and do the job properly when you have the time to do so

2) plywood and vinyl, don't even attempt self levelling screed as it will be hard to get right and take longer

richy999

If the tiles are pretty level, you could fill the grout gaps so that they are flush with the top of the tile. Then trim and loose lay the vinyl over the top and see how it looks.

Alternativley, the plywood will need to be fixed to the tiles in some way otherwise it will move around and unless you use a single piece, you may end up with obvious gaps/ridges which will show through the vinyl. You may also need to trim the bottom of the door to account for the raised floor level.

jen1301

richy999 wrote: »

If the tiles are pretty level, you could fill the grout gaps so that they are flush with the top of the tile. Then trim and loose lay the vinyl over the top and see how it looks.

Alternativley, the plywood will need to be fixed to the tiles in some way otherwise it will move around and unless you use a single piece, you may end up with obvious gaps/ridges which will show through the vinyl. You may also need to trim the bottom of the door to account for the raised floor level.

Thank you! This is the kind of advice I was looking for.

When doing bit of research last night I came across some info about filling the grout gaps. This seems the easiest option to try first and see how it looks so I think we'll give that a go.

The floor space in the bathroom isn't big by any means so I think we'd be able to get a piece of plywood big enough as a single piece although unsure how we would then fix it down to the tiles.

LauraS56

I'm planning to do the same in my bathroom. The tiles are brutally cold in winter, and would be hard to match when I get round to replacing the bath with a walk-in shower. My tiles are already grouted level, so I'll just have to level up the remaining area where the bath was.


Use vinyl cement to stick it down. I did that at my previous house on a concrete floor; it works well and remains flexible so you can take it up again when it comes time for replacement.