installing travertine.. weight issues ?

[srp]

My brother is going to fully tile my bathroom using travertine stone ( which was a bit of a bargain !) Anyway, I was just wandering is there any chance that the weight of all this stone could cause any problems to the structure of the house ? My house is a brick and block type construction and is an end of terrace with the bathroom upstairs. They have taken the block wall back to the block work but the other walls are plasterboard.. I am wandering if ceramic would have been the more sensible option. does anyone know exactly what the weight difference is between stone / ceramic ? I think they have got about 26 M sq. of the stuff including the floor that is.

Simon

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive got lots of stone here.

The good news is that it isn't a huge weight compared with e.g. a person standing on a floor. An unless you arer using inch thck stome, its not a deal heavier than quality ceramic tiles.

However you should pay a LOT of attention to the floor joists..any flex on tiles or stone will have the buggers cracking off, and although thick flexible cement helps, if your slabs are big, the problem gets worse

So put in maybe extra joist, and herringbone bracing, and sheet the lot in a good ply befre tiliing, though chip is as good if you don't let it get wet.

One final warning. IIRC Travertine is a limestone of sorts, and is susceptible to acid attack. Two common sources of acid in a bathroom are descaler and urine. Less common ones may be fruit juices and wine. I suggest you test your slabs backsides firss, to see if this is an issue, and use plenty of sealer on them.

Also, when grouting, this means that one of the best cleanup methods available - i.e. using brick acid or descaler to get grout smears off - is a nono. You MUST wash and sponge the tiles down every time you use cement or grout before it sets. I think I did the sealing part beore the grouting when I used stone, this helps as the sealer is more easly cleaned.

[srp]

Thanks for your reply. My brother is the expert tiler , I just wanted to check that the house wasn't going to fall down though LOL . Maybe I am in shock a bit at seeing my old bathroom ripped out back to the bare walls They are using some ply and extra screws on the floor, although it did not look like very thick stuff. Also flexible adhesive like you say.

I noticed that there are what appear to be travertine floor tiles in my work place, and many of them are cracked, even though this office was a complete new build project 10 years ago or so. I don't know if they would necessarily specified solid floors though . Hmm...