TonyB
wibbled on Saturday 10 October 2009 12:47

I have some tiling questions ?
I'm going to lay ceramic/porcelain floor tiles in my small downstairs
cloakroom.
The house was built in the 80's, and the existing floor covering is hard
(brittle) vinyl tiles, with a hard black bitumen like adhesive onto a
concrete floor.
Can I lay the tiles onto the existing vinyl tiles or will I need to strip
the vinyl tiles and adhesive back to the concrete ? If I do this will I
need to prepare the concrete in any way before laying the new tiles ?

Thanks for any help
Tony

Ideally you'd grind the bitemen adhesive off, but realising that may not
always be practical (I did, but the grinder made a *hell* of a mess -
luckily I had an empty house to do it in).

But, as vinyl *may* accept tile adhesive, you would be best advised to ring
BAL, Mapei or another reputable adhesive maker. They all have technical
contact numbers on their websites and Mapei are IME very helpful.

I would imaging that you would require a flexible adhesive - but you also
need to make sure it will actually stick.

Failing that, there may be a smoothing underlayment (self levelling
compound) that could be persuaded to stick, but again a phone call to the
likes of Ardex or F Ball would be a good idea - don't just sling down
something random from B&Q without checking with the manufacturer.

HTH

Tim

--
Tim Watts

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