Wall tiles then mortar bed?

Hi

Well after a few minor setbacks, I'm finally ready for the installation of a mortar bed in the shower/ bathroom. What I'm wondering is....
...is it feasible to tile the walls first, then do the mortar bed and tile the floor?
The reason is that the floor will slope along the wall (the drain is at one end of the shower) and I'd need to cut a few mm off the bottom of the tiles in the bottom row if I do the floor first- this will be very difficult. I thought by putting up the wall tiles first, I can simply build up the mortar to cover the bottom of the tiles.

Brilliant idea or bloody stupid?

Makes perfect sense to me but I'm not a tiler. I would think that would be the neatest way to approach it.

What I do in this situation is lay the mortar bed first, them tile the walls from the second row up. The height of the second row is determined so that you leave a full tile or close to a full tile where the floor is at its lowest point. Then I lay the floor tiles and scribe the last row of wall tiles to match.

In general, wall tiles are set before floor tiles, to minimise traffic and damage on the new floor. And in the specific case of a sloping mortar bed its easier to get most of the wall out of the way, but scribe the last row to the floor tiles.

Cheers
Michael

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mic-d

What I do in this situation is lay the mortar bed first, them tile the walls from the second row up. The height of the second row is determined so that you leave a full tile or close to a full tile where the floor is at its lowest point. Then I lay the floor tiles and scribe the last row of wall tiles to match.

In general, wall tiles are set before floor tiles, to minimise traffic and damage on the new floor. And in the specific case of a sloping mortar bed its easier to get most of the wall out of the way, but scribe the last row to the floor tiles.

Cheers
Michael

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Yeh, that's the way it's usually done. There's a D.I.Y. guide here:- http://www.infotile.com.au/features/...contents.shtml
Although I've done a couple of bathrooms some time ago now, and I laid all the wall tiles first to save me scribing the bottom course. It turned out fine. The only difference I can imagine is that there's a grout line along the floor instead of along the bottom of the wall.
BTW, I'm a chippy and not a tiler so there may be a good reason it's done the way it is even though it seems to be a bit more work.

Thanks for the info. I can't put a full tile along the bottom row because I'm using large floor tiles and have to put the slope from the far recess wall to the wall where the floor drain is. That means that at the high end of the slope, the adjacent wall tiles will be shorter than the low end of the wall (near the drain). I'd have to cut just a slither off the bottom of some of these tiles which will be really difficult.

I attached a picture hoping it may help to explain....
So this is why I was thinking of just doing the wall tiles first then build up the floor, covering the bottom tile edge.

Hi Danger, I know what you mean but it won't be difficult with a diamond blade. Also you can bring the second row a bit lower so the fullest tile still has say 10-20mm off it.

CHeers
Michael

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mic-d

Hi Danger, I know what you mean but it won't be difficult with a diamond blade. Also you can bring the second row a bit lower so the fullest tile still has say 10-20mm off it.

CHeers
Michael

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I thought about bringing the row lower but I want to avoid that. There is small 'step' at 2100mm high on the wall where the 6mm villaboard meets the 10mm plasterboard so I want to ensure I have a full tile that sits flush against the step. I don't want change where the sheets meet cause it'll throw all the tiles alignments out with the window, door, etc.

I used a diamond blade on tiles many times and it's great but I always seem to lose a few tiles to uneven cuts or small chips on the surface. At 50 bucks a sqm, I'd like to try and minimise the cuts.

Could you imagine if there was any problems with putting an almost full tile along the bottom row and mortar up against it?

I guess the main reason for doing it the other way is to hide any cut floor tiles under a lip. If you can make the junction between floor wall neat enough then can't see any reason not to do it that way.

Cheers
Michael