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The Natural Philosopher

wrote:
On 30 Jan, 11:20, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
Been tiling the bathroom with large (450 x 300mm) porcelain tiles. Much
of it was tiled before so removing the old didn't leave a perfect surface.
However...

Did the one wall which is old (100 years) plaster on brick. Some of the
skim came off which I made good before tiling. Fine. Looks great. Moved on
to another which is plasterboard and skimmed and in excellent condition -
this one was wallpapered. Did about half and ran out of adhesive. Which
was Homebase 'waterproof' adhesive and grout. Bought at the same time as
the tiles.

Now my closest shed is Wicks and they are rather cheaper than Homebase so
bought some from them. And this morning while finishing off that wall all
the tiles fixed with this stuff yesterday fell off. Quite a shock when the
first one went. The adhesive remained stuck to the tiles and you could see
it had been flattened where it contacted the wall but had come off clean
as a whistle from the plaster. The ones stuck with the Homebase stuff are
absolutely solid on the same wall.

I'm obviously going to get the Homebase stuff again - but what's wrong
with the Wicks product? Stored past its best or just no good? And do I
just take it back and complain?

Luckily not one tile was damaged by falling 6 ft or so.

--
*Middle age is when work is a lot less fun - and fun a lot more work.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I learned my lesson with Wickes adhesives when laying a 6m x 3.5m
slate floor. The adhesive didn't go off. Now I use BAL adhesives and
grouts and would simply refuse to use anything else. I'm a particular
fan of their flexible wide joint grout. I use it instead of silicone
in places.

T

I use Ardex adhesives for floors, and Evostik water proof for walls. Bal
for grout.

They may not be the best, but after trying a few others they were the
first ones I came to that actually could be relied upon. Neither are cheap.

I gave up on 'cheap' after many bad experiences.