Ceramic Tiles over joisted flloors

I am going to be tiling our kitchen with 12" ceramics. People have told me that they hear of a lot of tile cracking on joisted floors especially ranch homes. My home is constructed of 2x10 16"OC all cross braced with the longest span being 11 feet with doubled up 1/2" plywood flooring. Half of the kitchen is over crosswalls from the furnace room and family rooms below. The refrigerator sits directly over one of these so I'm not concerned with the weight of the refrigerator. Should I be concerned with cracking. When jumping I see no noticable flexing and the floor fells solid.

Appriate any input. THanks

Reply to
Ron
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Long as you replace the top layer of plywood with backer board or put down a mud bed, I don't forsee any problem. As a kid, I thought 2x10 joists were normal- astonished me when I started house shopping and saw lotsa 2x8 joists in tract houses. Maybe that is where the 'ranch home' bit started from. Just for giggles, you may want to add some screws through subfloor into the joists. Yes, big tile like that would be more likely to show visible cracks than 6 or 8 inch would, since smaller tiles usually crack loose at grout lines. One of the regulars on here will doubtless bring up the flex formula for the underlying joists. As well as all the usual advice about not trapping the dishwsher, etc, if you decide not to pull out the base cabinets to do the install.

Have fun, and try not to take it all too seriously. You can't do any permanent damage to the house. Absolute worst case scenario is that you have to rip it all back out and refit a conventional kitchen floor. Expensive but not serious.

aem sends...

Reply to
ameijers

Several years ago I had ceramic tile professionally installed on a floor similar to yours. It had half inch plywood plus quarter inch underlay and on that he put a mesh and mortar layer then the tiles. It ended up level with the hardwood next to it (3/4" on the half inch plywood). There hasn't even been one small crack anywhere.

Reply to
Alan

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