driving a car on tiles

[adrian]

Hi Adrian,
I wasn't having a go at you. I have flexible adhesive under my kitchen tiles and I wouldn't call the amount of movement microscopic. I'd say I can get about 0.5 - 1mm movement - enough to loosen the grout joints.
That movement is just me standing (or jumping) on the tile.
My comment about not trusting tile shops for advise has come from getting advise to buy expensive tile grout additive that supposedly makes it flexible. I now have to de-grout the entire kitcken floor and redo it with silicon.

That sounds like excessive movement to me. Everyone I spoke to recommended Ardex X56 because my floors are yellow tongue chipboard. The grout I used was Flexgrout Ultrasmooth. I have only finished building my kitchen a couple of months ago so I can't give a definitive opinion on it's longevity but I'm happy with the result.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Hi BM and Adrain,

Yes It is excessive, I went and had a stomp on it last night and don't seem to have the movement I once had, so it has settled down.
How I don't know!
BM you are right it is a timber floor under. Bloody thing was a small disaster but once I replace the grout I will be able to live with it, it is after all just something that you walk on.

BTW Adrian nice kitchen.

[bitingmidge]

BM you are right it is a timber floor under. Bloody thing was a small disaster but once I replace the grout I will be able to live with it, it is after all just something that you walk on.

Just a note for those that read this thread in the future.

DON'T tile directly onto timber floors.

In the "good old days" wet areas had poured slabs even in houses that had timber floors, this progressed to compressed fibre cement sheet eventually.

FC is a very heavy stable material, and when correctly installed will not flex at all.

Unfortunately, with the current fashion of large tiled areas, and the current lack of experience/knowledge/preparedness to pay for a proper job, lots of people are tiling directly onto timber/ply/mdf floors. Since timber is inherently flexible, and tiles are not, if you choose to do this, please expect to see the problems experienced by Bleedin' Thumb!

(Not having a go at you BT). It could be that some of your flex has disappeared as the timber framing has "crept" to a permanently deflected shape under the load.

Cheers,

P

[reybec]

i asked a tiler today and he said it can be done as long as the slab is sound and i get a full coverage under the tiles with a cement based adhesive.

like some have suggested on here

thanks for the replies

[sammy_h]

DON'T tile directly onto timber floors.

So, presumably putting a cement sheet over the timber first, would be the go? I see Hardies have a purpose-made product called tile underlay, or somesuch. Do you need to fix the underlay to the timber?

[Bleedin Thumb]

DON'T tile directly onto timber floors.

I second that BM. I got bad advise:mad: oh well we live and learn.


The moral of the story is ask here first.

[reybec]

well i got some advice from a tiler

he said it should be ok as long as i use a cement based adhesive with a good even coverage on a sound slab and the tiles are a reasonable quality.

i tried just tiling 4 tiles a side where the car goes waited a couple of days then drove the car over it a couple of times with absolutely no problems.

so this weekend i will finish the job

thanks for your advice everyone

[reybec]

i tiled the rest of the area and have driven the car on it a few times and only cracked one