I have a small bathroom (6x8) and am re-tiling. A lot of the old tiles are coming off with large lumps of plaster attached. Quite often down to the bricks. My local builder says to buy an extra tub of tile adhesive and use this to fill the holes when re-tiling. Would I be better off taking all plaster off down to the bricks and having it replastered professionally or is my builders advice sound? Mike.
No, the builder gave the best advice. Why plaster to a perfect wall that you are going to destroy by sticking tiles over?
If you want to go back to the brick, you would do better to batten and cover with plaster board and tile that, or fix the plaster board direct on the wall with appropriate cement.
exactly what i did, i pulled the tiles off and the plaster came with it & was advised to fill with tile adhesive as i was re-tiling, did just that & no problems. would have been too costly to have the lot replastered just to tile over again.
Tile adhesive is rather expensive to use as a filler, and it doesn't like being used thick as it shrinks. Also, unless you are good at tiling, you'll find it hard to lay tiles flat on an uneven surface. It's possible, but not easy.
I would suggest you buy a bag of bonding coat plaster, and use that as a filler. Paint the areas to be filled (the brickwork and existing plaster edges) with diluted PVA (1:5 PVA:water) first. When that's soaked in and dried, repeat with a 1:3 mixture. Ideally, before that completely dries, slap in the plaster. Make it slightly proud of the surrounding plasterwork initially, and then drag a straight edge piece of timber across with a zig-zag motion to rule it off level with the surrounding plasterwork. Leave the surface rough -- tile adhesive will stick better. If the holes were deep, the bonding coat may crack as it sets, but this doesn't matter.
The wall must have completely dried out before you start putting up the tiles.
================ 'One coat plaster' could be used as an alternative to 'bonding coat' . It's probably a bit easier to work and it's really intended to be a one coat finish whereas bonding coat is supposed to be finished with a skim coat.
Cic.
Alternatively you can use hardwall rather than bonding and you wouldn't have to seal as you're supposed to use it straight onto a high suction surface.
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