Making good wall prior to retiling

almost any gap filler or plaster works fine.

Oh and

I would not bother really.

I would use the normal bonding which sticks to anything, for small hole the adhesive will cover them. The best thing to use I found is to use a diluted PVA adhesive on the walls before tiling.

PVA has its followers and objectors wrt tiling - if the OP searches this group with the words "pva tiles" I suspect they will get the gist of the debate...

Jim K

You don't need a perfect surface to tile on, so fill any big holes with bonding plaster or similar, and get the whole lot level with no projecting lumps of old glue etc.

It all seems a bit of a minefield. Browning and bonding have been recommended and yet I've also read they are not suitable ! To PVA or not PVA, that is the other question... to which there seems to be conflicting opinions. I think I've settled on Bal quickset render. It's not cheap, but looks ideal for my purpose.

Thanks Andy C

I've stuck 100's of yards of tiles on in my work, always used a dilute PVA like unibond and never had any tiles fall off

As has "any type of plaster". The thing to take away is something you can splodge in the holes, flatten off, and will set is what you are after. Depending on the "suction" of the wall, the filler may crack a little on drying if you choose the "wrong" one - but that does not matter anyway as long as it stays put. So it comes down to how much filler you need. if its one or two small bits a box or tub of ordinary decorating filler will do. If you need 20kg, then a bag of plaster is very much cheaper.

PVA will kill suction, and aid adhesion generally. It will also add a measure of water resistance. So if any of those qualities are handy in your application then go for it. For example, patching a deep hole in a dry flaky wall where the plaster has blown, I would PVA the existing bits of the wall where the new plaster will touch it.

When I tiled the shower room at the last place, that was onto fresh plasterboard. So I gave it a PVA first to improve the moisture resistance of the board. (the walls in the shower enclosure themselves were WBP ply with render over). It also gives you a bit more working time with the tile glue, since it does not loose its water and hence workability so fast.

Thanks John for that comprehensive and helpful explanation.

Andy C

Tile adhesive is as good as anything for filling holes and small scale leveling. Whatever you have lots of will do.