How much does tile adhesive iron out “slightly” uneven walls

[DaveyH]

Hello all,

We've just had our bathroom re-boarded (dot & dab) and re-skimmed.

We intend to fully tile it, with 200mm x 500mm ceramic tiles that are 7mm thick.

About 95% of the wall surface area is completely flat and will be no problem to tile on. However, on the top righthand corner of one of the windows the walls have ended up uneven (only horizontally). I can’t really work out why, I think it’s something to do with the plasterer putting the metal skim beads a couple of millimeters too far in on the side of the reveal, or a couple of millimeters too far out, on the top of the reveal.

If I place a tile over the top right corner of the window and press it down on one side, the other side of the tile is about 10mm away from the wall. Is 10mm over a 500mm tile a lot to deal with?

There are also a couple of areas on the walls where if you press one side of the tile, the other side of the tile is about 6mm from the wall (again only horizontally). I think this is where 2 plasterboards have been joined and he done poor job of leveling them up with each other horizontally while he was doing the dotting and dabbing and the skim coat has hidden the evidence.

Again, is 6mm anything to worry about in terms of lipping when I get around to tiling? Or will the 8mm bed of tile adhesive iron out all these imperfections and I should stop being such a drama queen?

Thanks in advance

 

[prceramics]

why did you plaster it? you should of just left the plasterboard far better surface to tile, if you are using adheisive to hide 10mm i feel you are asking for trouble

 

[DaveyH]

why did you plaster it? you should of just left the plasterboard far better surface to tile, if you are using adheisive to hide 10mm i feel you are asking for trouble

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

The bloke who dot and dabbed then skimmed it was my cousin. He claims to have 8 years plastering experience. He's also done plastering jobs for a few members of our family, who all gave him glowing references. However I wish he’d stuck with his earlier office based career.

In slight fairness to him, he did mention that if we were going to fully tile there was no need to skim the boards, but at the time we could not make our minds up whether to full tile or only part tile, so just told him to go ahead and skim it, because we thought it wouldn’t really make much difference.

Apart from the unevenness the skim coat has introduced, I've also recently found out that skimmed plaster boards will only hold up to 20kg per square meter whereas the un-skimmed plasterboards would have held up to 32Kg per square meter, so we are now limited to using only light ceramic tiles, instead of the heavier porcelain tiles. I’ve told him about the weight issue and his response was a puzzled "I didn't know about that" followed by a shrug of the shoulders.

I’ve found this with a lot of blokes calling themselves “tradesmen”. They talk a very good game, but don’t really know their arse from their elbow (I’ve encountered a plumber with 15 years experience, who thinks waste water can flow uphill and electricians who think it’s acceptable to drill a hole near an already notched floor joist, to name just a few). Consequently I trust none of them, and where possible I do everything myself.

Like I’ve said on my opening post. The worst mistake is around the windows, where he has put the window beads on level, but too far forward of the plasterboards so the skim coat gradually runs up to them. I’ve pointed out the problems to him, he just says that I’m far too fussy and reckons there is it nothing wrong with it, but the long flat edge of my spirit level is telling me otherwise. The only part of his work I am really happy with is the ceiling, which after I’ve sanded it (to get rid of all the trowel marks) has turned out very good indeed.

 

[prceramics]

get him back an show him what you are talking about with the level? you might be too fussy mate , it might be a simple problem to overcome its hard to say without seeing it just remember your tiled surface will mirror your untiled walls

 

[jctilingservices]

this is quite hard to picture, put a straight edge across the window to see what part is actually out and what part is not, perhaps you could build parts up using a rapid set addy,

The guy is apparently a plasterer mate, not a tiler, therefore no reason why he should know about weight ratios, for that matter the guy probably used pva, most plasterers will, but tillers say NO to pva as its water based, to each their own mate.

 

[DaveyH]

this is quite hard to picture, put a straight edge across the window to see what part is actually out and what part is not, perhaps you could build parts up using a rapid set addy,

The guy is apparently a plasterer mate, not a tiler, therefore no reason why he should know about weight ratios, for that matter the guy probably used pva, most plasterers will, but tillers say NO to pva as its water based, to each their own mate.

Actually he knew about PVA, he said whatever you do don't use PVA to seal the walls or your tiles might fall off in the future. He said use the proper stuff like mapei primer g. So he did know some stuff about tiling.

Here is a short video showing what I'm moaning about, the wobble on the spirit level is about 12mm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7xmyIjQgLc

There is another window in the room and it's exactly the same.

 

[MrRight]

I've overcome worse with rapid set. Just be sure to start at the most proud part of the wall,and work DEAD level from there. You only need a solid bed around the bath/shower, and where any fixtures and fittings are going. I would be happy to just D&D the wall where it runs out. Just my opinion but I feel you are being too fussy. If you don't want to D&D you can purchase some backing board and adhere to the wall where it runs out to build up the level, but I honestly wouldn't worry