Floor tiles in bathroom

[Stephen Williams]

SWMBO wants ceramic tiled floor in bathroom, but....

The floor to lay on is chipboard. The toilet and pedestal to the wash basin will have to be moved (lifted) unless I cut around them. There are central heating pipes running under the floor, with a small access panel in the chipboard.

My questions: How do I prepare the floor to receive the tiles. Or alternatively What flooring would you suggest.

The reason SWMBO wants tiles is that our young boy has a bad aim in the middle of the night and the carpet is starting to become marked!

Cheers Steve

[S Viemeister]

For cleaning purposes, you/she would be better off with sheet vinyl - much easier to mop clean. Scrubbing along grout lines is MUCH more work. It's also much easier to get to the access panel with loose-laid vinyl.

Sheila

[Simon]

You will need to check that the floor doesn't move, this could be done by either screwing down tongue and grooved (or use a 4mm slotter in a router and some strips of 4mm ply) WBP plywood of at least 12mm on to the chipboard, screwing about every six inches. Or replacing the chipboard with tongue and grooved 18mm WBP plywood. It would be a good idea to seal this with a polyurethane. Then using a flexible flooring tile adhesive like Ardurit X7, lay the tiles. It is advisable to lift the toilet and pedestal and tile under. As to your access hatch, there is no reason why this couldn't be maintained

[Andrew Gabriel]

My parents had their kitchen done and had a couple of access hatches. I wasn't there when it was done, the the tiler said they had put the tiles over them and grouted those particular ones with some type of mastic which could be scraped out with a screwdriver if necessary and the tile levered up. Not suitable for frequent access, but for something you might need to do only once or twice in the life of the floor, probably fine.