Travertine tiles too heavy for these walls?

[IainWatson]

HI all,
Planning to tile walls of bathroom with travertine tiles. Two walls are standard stud walls with 9mm Plasterboard, one wall is 12mm plasterboard dabbed onto a sandwich of 4 more 12 mm boards and the final wall is 12mm board dabbed onto breeze block.

Supplier is suggesting that the tiles may be too heavy and simply pull off the boards from the "stud" walls and is trying to sell me Marmox Boards. Can anyone educate me as to how I work out the load bearing of each wall, and if it is indeed the case that the tiles are too heavy, if the suppliers suggested solution of Marmox Boards beneath the tiles is adequate/a good solution.
Any other solutions would be appreciated as this has come quite late in the whole refurb and has kind of stymied me a bit.

TVM,
Iain

 

[jefoss]

you havent said how big walls are or if your tiling them all the way, but i suspect you will have no worries on it.

 

[IainWatson]

sorry....the largets wall is 1950 by 2230mm (it's the one that has 9mm plasterboard

Iain

 

[Jasonb]

If the plasterboard is unskimmed it will hold a max of 32kg per m2, thats the combined weight of tile & adhesive, 12mm stone is usually on the upper limit. I would be most worried by the wal that is several layers thick as the bond of the bottom board to the wall is carrying the tiles, adhesive and 50mm of plasterboard

Jason

 

[MR GUS]

If the plasterboard is unskimmed it will hold a max of 32kg per m2, thats the combined weight of tile & adhesive, 12mm stone is usually on the upper limit. I would be most worried by the wal that is several layers thick as the bond of the bottom board to the wall is carrying the tiles, adhesive and 50mm of plasterboard

Jason

definitely agree with jason, ripping out a bit of plasterboard (preferably all of it in your bathroom & replacing it with hardybacker or similar cement waterproof equiv is the sensible thing to do when doing a drastic (read large & complete) overhaul of a bathroom, ..it's cheap enough to factor in where necessary, dot & dab to solid brick walls then screw down when set for extra durability, thenyou've not really got anything to worry about later on regarding board coming away etc.
anyhow plasterboard in a bathroomwas ok when there was nothing else on the market..but there is, typically hardyboard its around £8.99 per board to the public (12 mm) ..so not a budget blower!

..I always think when contemplating a job as to whether I want to be cursed in 20 years time (or less) by the next occupier or seen as putting things right & when exposing & renovating or commended for sorting it as it was found!
Hardyboard is very useful in wet areas such as bathrooms, takes a bit longer but very satisfying from a home owner / sellling point of view.

 

[Jasonb]

Plasterboard adhesive does not stick to aquapanel, if you are going to dab it to the walls use powdered floor tile adhesive and a few screws once its set.

Jason

 

[IainWatson]

Thanks guys, good gen
Iain