Ceramic, HB, and vinyl-DAMN-need plan B.
OK, I went to tear up my foyer floor today to prepare it for ceramic tile.
Plan A: Tear up two layers of plywood and vinyl. Leave originall 3/4 inch ply on joists, add 1/2″ ply and 1/4 inch HB. This would allow finished ceramic tile to be almost flush with adjoining finished HW living room floor. Unfortunately, the previous owners must’ve taken advantage of a sale on ringshank nail. It would not be extreme to say that there was a nail every 6 inches. 5 hours layer, I finally finished removing a continuous sheet of vinyl and one 1/2 layer of plywood. The second layer underneath is made of some really old, brittle 12×12″ vinyl-like tile that is breaking off in fingernail size pieces.
So, not wanting to spend another full day chipping away…move on to plan B. Does this sound right?
- Fill voids left where some of the brittle tile broke. What do I fill the voids with (1/16″ deep max)? Thinset? Something else?
- Laydown 1/4″ HB. Will thinset adhere to the old tile? Does it matter?
- Lay ceramic tile over HB.
Additional info: the subfloor is now 1.5″ thick. Not much flex but there was some squeaking so I drove 3″ every 12″ into the joists (16″ O.C.) below.
Also, I have a 1/8″ and 1/4″ v-notch trowel. For my 1/2 bath where I replaced the floor all the way down to the framing, I only needed the 1/8″. The foyer floor has some “out of flat”. Not too bad and not flexing from what I can tell.
- Should I use the 1/4″ trowel to help compensate for the uneveness?
- If yes, can I do that with pre-mix tile adhesive? Or should I use thinset?
- If not, what is the proper way to compensate for the uneveness?
Thanks all in advance for your help.
Edited 3/7/2008 5:29 pm ET by emaxxman00
Replies
Yeah. I had a similar experience tiling my kitchen: the existing floor was vinyl tiles, but they were glued down EXTREMELY well. Fingernail chunks sounds right. . . And of course I made a mess trying to break some of it up, so I had some low areas.
I ended up using Kerolastic thinset and tiling over the old floor. It's a modified thinset of some kind. Instead of using water, you mix in this milky stuff which sticks incredibly well to just about anything. It doesn't come cheap - it cost me over $200 - but it's what the professionals use around here when tiling over an old floor.
For low areas, I just built them up using my 1/4" notched trowel. I just made ridges on the floor, then went back the next day and tiled over that. Worked out great.
So you had old floor->Kerolastic->new tile? No underlayment between old floor and new floor?