Tile installation question

[Zootal]

I'm getting ready to install some tile in my kitchen. I'm using 3x8 tiles, and I'm doing them two high and about 30 feet long as a backsplach on the wall around my kitchen counters. I have pretty much everything I need, but there is one thing I'm not certain about. The wall is painted sheetrock. Can I just glue the tile to the painted sheetrock? Do I need to do anything to it other then clean it real good with TSP or the equivalent?

IOW, how should I prepare the wall so I can glue the tiles to it?

[charlie]

if it were me, i'd make sure it was well deoiled (tsp) and perhaps sanded a bit with an agressive grit sandpaper or sand screen to give it some tooth, as your adhesive is only sticking to paint, not the sheetrock.

i'd also adhesvie rather than thinset.

[gfretwell]

"Flex" thinset will stick to almost anything. I put a floor down over terrazzo that had 30 years of wax and other finishes on it. That tile is impossible to get up.

[Zootal]

The bottom layer is a glass tile, and I just noticed that the adhesive I have says not to use on glass..phhhtt...back to the store again lol.

So clean real well, roughen a bit so it's not a smooth glossy finish, and then we should be good to go. I wasn't sure if I needed to actually remove the paint of not, or if I even could without destroying the sheetrock finish, which is basically heavy paper.

I have some "adhesive & grout", not sure where it came from. I wasn't planning on using it mainly because I don't know enough about it, and I gather from those I've talked to that I'm better off using adhesive to set the tile, and grout to grout it - not a one-size-fits-all adhesive/grout product.

[charlie]

this is why you should give all the info in the OP.

there are special thinsets and adhesives for glass. they have more give in them or don't shrink as much, as normally whatever you're using shrinks as it dries. when it does so and it is stuck to the back of the tile, the movement can break a glass tile.

regards, charlie

[Red Green]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Hogwash.

Oh, you mean leaving the subfloor in tact?