Tiling - backerboard question

[Julie]

This may be dumb, but I need to ask it anyway.

My kitchen has a mid-80s laminate (formica?) countertop. It must go. My intent is to tile it myself, with granite tile (that is, once the dishwasher and washer/dryer debacles have died down).

The obvious ("right") thing to do is to pull out the present countertop, put down cement (or hardy?) backerboard, and put down the tile.

But: why can't I rough up the laminate, and put down the tile on top of that? Seems pretty solid, as a base, to me ... I'd gain 1/2" in height, but that doesn't seem like a big deal. There's a wood molding strip that I could remove & replace, so the edge location wouldn't change. Eh?

JSH

[Charles Spitzer]

yes, you can do this as long as the laminate is well fastened down, and you've roughed up the surface a lot (think belt sander with 40 grit belts).

[Benign Vanilla]

Sure...but will it be climbable? ;)

-- BV.

[e-mail]

[Austin Lorenzen]

Having done a couple of tile projects, my rule of thumb is do the right thing with tile, even if it's the hard thing. It's not hard to attach some 1/4" backerboard to your existing countertop, and not very expensive. If you're working with granite, and all of that cost, you may as well take the time and money to do it right, IMHO. Good luck, though! -AL

[Julie]

"Austin Lorenzen" wrote

Aha. So backerboard + tile on top of the present one, would be preferable, or equivalent to pulling out the existing 'top? I'd gladly add the backerboard - it's the pulling-out that I dread (and I'm not sure what's under it anyway).

JSH