I took up the carpet and underlay expecting a nice cement screed. I found chipboard over concrete.
I've had a poke around on Google and the results are mixed. Some say it'll end in disaster, rip up the chipboard and replace it with 18mm ply. Some say it can be done.
I don't want the expense of replacing the chipboard or the height change of plating it with ply.
Since I've already bought the tiles and tiling is my first choice, I am interested to hear from anyone who has experience of such a project.
mark ( snipped-for-privacy@reepham2003.force.co.uk) wibbled on Tuesday 01 February 2011
13:58:
Can you not pull up the chip and tile onto the concrete?
How is the chip suported? Battens or just laying direct? Is the concrete DPM good or is the chip there with a battened air gap and/or plastic surface DPM because the subfloor is damp?
If the chip is fully supported, I might just be persuaded to give it a go -
*with* a Class S2 (them be important magic words) flexible adhesive (BAL, Mapei etc - sometimes a single mix powder, sometimes a liquid additive that is matched o one of their normally non flexible powders) - Tile Giant is quite a good place to obtain "proper" tile adhesives. Flexible grout too...
Chip's lack of resistance to water would make me a little nervous through - if you lost water down there, even just from vigourous floor mopping and a bad wall-floor silicone joint on a regular basis - or more disasterously, from a major flood, it would almost certainly end in tears. At least WBP ply will not spontaneously go pear shaped under such conditions as long as there is a way it can dry out.
Also - is it Green chip - some (all?) of that, whilst water resistant, is waxed which might bugger up your chances of getting tiles to bond.
Best tell us a bit more about this chip and how it's laid...
Will this be a bathroom or kitchen? If the chip is waterproof (usually has a green caste IIRC), you should be ok. Ply is the norm with a suspended floor but, over concrete, I wouldn't bother.
It was done about 4 years ago as part of a barn conversion under building control. I assume that there is a dpm as there are no signs of damp. This was before my time. Not sure if it's on battens, will have a tap dance to determine when I'm on site next, prolly later today. Everything seems to have been done neatly and properly so I am loath to rip up the chipboard as it would require redoing the skirting, some of which is on a studwork wall and might bring the plasterboard with it. A can of worms I'd sooner leave unopened. Plan B is some sort of vinyl flooring.
The chipboard is the usual 2400 by 600 t&g. It is not green and doesn't appear waxy.
I take your point about water but would have thought that there is some sort of swish on sealer out there somewhere to cope with this issue.
I would give a good coating of unibond PVA first, then a flexible adhesive and grout if you can get it, then seal the corners with a matching silican sealant
I've got experience of tiles on chip, and I assure you I wont be recreating it, its a fool idea. Yes, you can, if youre doing it for someone else, and dont care how long it lasts. Tile onto concrete and it can last a lifetime. Can you rip out the chip and screed upto the required height? Might be able to leave the skirting in situ if you saw round close to it first for the corner sheets.
mark ( snipped-for-privacy@reepham2003.force.co.uk) wibbled on Tuesday 01 February 2011
15:08:
Barn conversion... OK - they either had crap or concrete there originally.
If it's crap and they dug out and laid a new slab - I cannot see why they would not have insulated that and screeded it and dispensed with the chip.
If there was concrete (and I have little experience - I'm hypothesising), perhaps they got away with plastic on top for the DPM and chip.
Or possibly insulation - I have seen this done, once. 25mm jablite direct to concrete (and this was a barn conversion) the chip dirct on top.
1st option - yes you could easily have the chip out, if necessary use some flooring compound (eg Stopgap 300) to raise the level (that will ass 3-20 odd mm with little fuss compared to trying to SBR screed such a thing layer) and tile. As the tile + adhesive has thickness, you may not even notice much level change compared to 18mm ply, unless battens were involved.
2nd option - bit stuffed unless you use an epoxy DPM (I did) then compound on top. Still very DIYable with one extra pair of hands.
It wouldn't in all likelyhood. It might involve buying or borrowing a circular saw and a Fein like tool (eg Fein Multimaste or Bosch version).
The plunge cut ability withh let you get under the skirting to relase the bits at the edge or cut flush to the skirting (be slow but doable).
I would make a simple choice:
Vinyl if it's too much work - and there is nothing wrong with a good vinyl - I've had vinyl in kitchens and going for the good makes means the pattern doesn't not fall off in 5 minutes and it can give a pretty convincing tiled look. If you got a flood and the cjip goes pop, you at least won't be killing yourself over the expense wasted - and vinyl can be ripped up to allow the floor to dry out.
Tiles: investigate and decide and depending, at least switch ply in.
It's a grey area (given the unknowns) but I would be pissed off it if were me and I spent ages tiling chip just to have it go pop later.
We have a floating floor in the kitchen. The sub-floor is concrete with
100mm of polystyrene over that. The floor is plywood over the polystyrene. To stop the plywood from bouncing it had to be screwed down at 100mm centres. That was fun. Finding a long enough SDS drill to go through ply, polystyrene and concrete was among the many fun experiences that I had.
The screws used were Multi-Monti 200mm long to ensure a good grip in the concrete. This has worked well, the floor doesn't move at all. The tiles were applied to the ply using a flexible adhesive and grout. No cracked tiles or cracked grout and the work was done almost a decade ago.
I've not tried tiling on chipboard and I wouldn't like to.
Its not the chip per se. Its the overall stiffness that counts. I've got perfectly sound tiles on chip BUT you MUST take as much of the flex out as you can, and use a flexible adhesive at least 5mm thick.
Its both. Chip inevitably means flexible, you can support it as much as possible but you're still liable to get microcracking. Now add the occasional water spill, the water soaks into the crack and the chipboard blows. Floor ruined, and its a pita to take the surface of the chip back down so you can retile that patch. And of course it'll happen again.
"mark" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:
Been there, bought the T-Shirt and ended up with the worst finish of any job I've ever done and I'm not a complete klutz ... I would never tile over chipboard again - ever.
Doing the job took less than a day ... but I'm still working on fixing it.
Just had my kitchen re done and lifted the tiles to replace. The tiles had been fitted to plywood sheeting that had been nailed to the floor boards. Made lifting the tiles a much easier job. I would recommend putting down plywood sheeting over the chip and tile on that. A simpler job in the future when or if you need to change the tiles.
but that leaves you with a step at the door(s) and, if ply gets soaked, it too would probably have to come up. I'd gamble on not having a flood. I was in a posh new build block recently where all the kitchens were tiled on chip
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