Bathroom tiles - how to prepare walls

[burbs]

Hi, I'm retiling a bathroom. We have removed the old tiles and old wall paper. Some patches of the wall paper were very difficult to remove so we have just scored it.

Am wondering if there's anything we should do to the walls now before tiling? Sand down bumps, prep walls somehow?

Thanks!

 

[burbs]

And a couple of further questions:

Any thoughts on the best bonding?

After tiling, does only the shower enclosure area need to be tanked or whole bathroom?

Any comments much appreciated!

 

[Karis]

Some patches of the wall paper were very difficult to remove so we have just scored it. Am wondering if there's anything we should do to the walls now before tiling?

Remove ALL of the wall paper, you cannot tile over wall paper.

Sand down bumps, prep walls somehow?

You need a flat tile base but how flat will depend on tile size. What other prep you need will depend on several other factors such as tile weight, what type & size of tiles are you proposing & if it’s a wet area. The quality & type of tilling products you use is also very important; quality trade products only, cheap DIY shed stuff is mostly inferior.

Any thoughts on the best bonding?

What do you mean by bonding? If you mean tiles bonding to the wall, no bonding agent or primer will be stronger than the weakest link which is usually paint & then the plaster. But, in your case, it will be the wall paper if you don’t remove it all & please don’t mention PVA.

After tiling, does only the shower enclosure area need to be tanked or whole bathroom?

No point in tanking a shower enclosure after you’ve tiled; if you’re going to do it, do it before! You only need to tank the whole room if your constructing a wet room.

I would suggest you do a lot more research, start with the Tiling Sticky //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=77709 but some of it is a bit out of date. Then read a couple of months worth of Tiling Forum archive posts & come back with questions if you need to.