Tiling a Wetroom Floor, How?

[r.rain]

Hello again

Well something has got me thinking again. Nearly finished putting down my wetroom floor after hours of sweat (buckets of it), blood and very nearly tears.

Anyway one thing occured to me, which maybe a stupid question, but how are you supposed to tile a floor which is not level and has falls? I purchased a shower tray which fixes to the joists and runs flush with the floor which has falls built into it. After I have laid the tanking membrane I plan to put electric UFH ontop and then tiles ontop of that.

Can anyone enlighten me, I'm assuming there is some special technique?

Cheers

TIA

Richard

[Andrew Gabriel]

At least it should run away easily.

I tiled a small kitchen floor recently which was rather saucer shaped -- 2" lower in the middle that around the walls. I didn't do anything special for this, and it worked fine. However, one thing I always do when tiling is to use the tile spacers in a different way from what is intended. Instead of using a single one inserted in the cross at the meeting of 4 tiles, I use 4 of them, each with just one limb poked into each of the 4 gaps between the tiles, and the rest sticking up above the floor like little grave markers. This means I can do micro adjustments to the spacing and make sure ajacent rows stay in sync. When the tile adhesive is set, I pull the spacers out (the odd one snaps off, but most come out complete).

[Andy Hall]

I thought that I was the only one who did that. Works well, doesn't it////

[Nick Atty]

Not only do I do that, I've seen a professional (well, he did I job I'd never even think of attempting, brilliantly) do it.

[Grunff]

:-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Just though of something else I did that made tiling a curved floor easier -- I used smaller tiles, 200x200mm. I used them because I thought they look nicer than the more common size, but this would also make it easier to follow curved surfaces, and you have 50% more grout lines available for making any micro adjustments. OTOH, you need over twice as many tiles, so it takes twice as long to lay, but I was very pleased with the effect -- it made a small room look bigger.

[r.rain]

Thanks all Cheers

Richard

[Bolted]

Normal advice is to use large tiles to make a room look bigger.

Presumably the falls are planar, so the OP effectively has four triangular surfaces rising away from the drain? In which case, all you need to do is to cut the tiles to match the falls, as it were, i.e. there will need to be a diagonal cut made so that the tiles don't cross the four intersecting lines that seperate the planes.

£500 for the sealing kit seems very expensive, for the archives. I'm sure BAL WP1 would have come in cheaper, or a mix of wediboard and WP1 to seal the joins.

[John Rumm]

Nope, me too!

(its is a bit more flexible I find, because if you need some tiny adjustments, you can rotate the spacer 90 degrees to get a slightly wider gap, or leave it put and add a second for wider still).

[Christian McArdle]

I get the impression that anyone who spends any time at all tiling soon learns to do this.

Christian.

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

I do that as well. Has the added advantage that you can twist the spacers if you need to incease the spacing.

sponix

[Andy Dingley]

Soon there shall be a trendy fashion for improving the feng shui of tiled floors by using more organic materials as tile spacers, perhaps timber. Of course these would need to be dipped in something oily first, to stop the adhesive sticking. We could even sell these in handy pocket-sized boxes, for a fraction of the price of the plastic spacers.

[Derek Geldard]

I had no problem cutting up the boxes that the tiles came in into little slips and folding the double.

DG

[Christian McArdle]

You could even dip the ends in phosphorus and create a dual purpose spacer that could be used to light barbecues or candles.

Christian.

[John Rumm]

Perhaps with a range of attractive coloured ends? ;-)

[Andy Hall]

... and here was me thinking that I'd invented something....

[Andy Hall]

I think there's a business opportunity for you there, Andy.

However, the key point is to sell them for more than the plastic ones because of the feng shui added value.

The little oil spots in the grout could be the signature that these have been used - mentioned in estate agent literature etc.

[Steve Walker]

me too... :o)

[r.rain]

Spot on that man. I was thinking I would have to do this hence my original question, thanks. Maybe but it's the complete kit including what they call an aquadec (flush shower tray) primer, membrane, shower trap with re-inforcing tape and some weird putty stuff. I haven't got round to water proofing yet but I'm using 18mm WBP grade ply to secure the tray between the joists which rests upon battens and I have some noggins to support all the edges. An overlay of 4mm ply brings the floor all flush. I used some spare french oak boards to completely reboard the room too as the old boards were knackered after years of hacking apart. So far so good.....

Cheers

Richard