"mm" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:13:57 -0300, "John Gilmer"
wrote:

Yesterday, we pulled the 12" square tile squares off a bathroom floor.
We
have owned the place for almost 20 year but we don't know how much longer
than that the tile was in place.

So the only thing holding everything in place was the grout and
gravity?

No. The tiles seems to be of the "self-stick" variety or have some very
thin adhesive. These are just your run of the mill "plastic" tiles.
Except for where the bridged over the joint between two pieces of the
sub-floor, there was no tile failure and no lifting. The tiles butted
against each other so there was no grout.

The "paper" seems to be held down by some still put down with a notched
trowel. Just your regular "mastic."



Anyway, it seems that these is "paper" between the tiles and the
sub-floor.

Was this common practice in the past? I will say that the "paper" made
it
easy to pick up the old tiles. The paper is stuck to the subfloor here
and
there but most of it scrapes up. The paper didn't seem to absorb
moisture
unlike the masonite underlayment that the kitchen the same house used.

If I knew what the stuff was, I would be tempted to put down "paper"
again.

Just a guess, maybe there was paper between the tiles in the box they
came in, and the installer put them down a s a unit.

The paper isn't is 12x12 sections. It seems to cover the floor. I havn't
found joints but I haven't looked hard.