What adhesive??? Travertine Tiles Wall and Floor Tiles

[YNWA2012]

I was wondering if a pro can offer some advice. I am currently having a new bathroom fitted out. The tiles on the wall are Travertine 45 x 30 H&F. What adhesive should be used for this? Although the tiling is almost complete I noticed this morning the company doing the work has been using a ready mixed tile adhesive. Is this strong enough will it last?

Secondly the floor tiles are Travertine but much bigger i think 60 x 40. They are yet to be laid and fitted. Any advice on the type of adhesive and or preparation that should go into this. The floor in the bathroom has been replaced and are just big boards that are currnetly screwed into the joists.

Thanks for any help and information.

 

[tpt]

it should be a white, powdered adhesive but its not unusual for tilers to get a away with a ready mixed. that size is just on the cusp of acceptability. the two issues you can get is the adhesive not setting, and shadowing coming through the tile from the adhesive which may happen much later.

on the floor it could be ply or chip board. if its chip (most likely green??) then it needs ripping up or overboarding with backer board or at least 12mm ply. adhesive should be a flexible, white powedered adhesive.

all bits about white adhesive above assume its a light\beige travertine

 

[YNWA2012]

Thanks for the information. The floor is a green chipboard stuff which is moisture protective stuff from wickes. Is this any good for the floor tiles to be fitted on or should something else be used or done?

The wall tile adhesive is not drying correctly and in places i can see the adhesive way exceeds the 3 to 6mm depth of adhesive. This all seems like bad news and I have a meeting with buidlers tomorrow to tell them to begin the painful task of taking the tiles from the walls.

I have had a long conversation with the technical department at BAL today who were very helpful and explained the procedure for such a job using the bal products which seem to have excellent reviews.

Not sure how the builders are going to react and i hope they have some liability insurance to cover the cost of new tiles.

The builder has said that the walls should be chipped back to the brick and a sand and cement layer to sort the walls out prior to tiling. Any comment on any of this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tpt]

tiling directly onto chipboard isnt the best idea. best practice is to replace or overboard.

no need to go back to brick, but they too are heavy for skimmed plaster finishes by rights - lots do ignore this though. tiling onto plasterboard or backerboard is fine.

 

[stevereader]

I work for a bathroom company and i can thoroughly recommend all BAL products-we switched to BAL a couple of years ago because we had a few disasters with another brand. After the switch we've had no problems!

 

[tpt]

bal are great products, as are granfix, ardex, palace, weber and loads of others. two important things are: use the right adhesive for the job, and avoid the cheap shed crap.

using tubbed adhesive on large format tiles (even bal tubbed) is a bad idea