Tiling wooden floor

[jblack]

Hello,

We are replacing our kitchen soon. We'd like to tile the floor and have floor boards at the moment.

I know we would be best covering the floor in ply before tiling. This obviously raises the floor height too. Is it ok to tile on to chipboard flooring? If so I will just replace the whole floor and do this.

Thanks, J

 

[Symptoms]

jb - NEVER use chipboard for flooring (unless it's only going to be used for light-weight storage in a loft) and don't tile straight onto the floorboards. As you don't want to raise floor levels (good man, I hate different levels in houses), and because you're replacing the kitchen units, lift the existing floorboards and replace with exterior grade plywood (WBP) 18mm thick or 25mm thick screwed to joists. Ensure any joins are mid-point over the joists for support and any joins that are at right-angles to the joists support below with noggins (75mm x 50mm minimum). Try to use whole 8 x 4 sheets, rather than small panels. We've always used 18mm ply in these situations but others here will recommend 25mm thick stuff.

You can then tile onto the ply using a good quality flexible adhesive.

Check out the advice on the Sticky above.