Hey, list. I was getting ready to tile the concrete floor of the kids' new
basement playroom and decided to check my how-to-tile book (Setting Tile by
Michael Byrne). Just to see if I was missing anything, you know.

Apparently, I am. Byrne makes quite a point of the importance of a flat floor.
Specifically, he says that a concrete slab shouldn't be more than one-eighth
out of level in 10 feet. Well. I had noticed that the floor dropped off
toward one end of the room. So, I took a level to it and discovered that it
dropped about 1.25 inches in about eight feet.

This is a relatively new (2000) slab. It's not cracked. It just slopes at one
end.

I laid the tiles (12 inches square) out on the floor and identified the
location where they rock slightly. So I presume that is where the slope
begins. It seems to me I could easily compensate for this with a little extra
thinset. But I don't know if that's the best course.

The author doesn't say what will or could happen if I go ahead and tile a floor
like this. So, I'll put it to you folks: How far up S**t Creek am I?

Mark

"MDixon1918" wrote in message
...
It seems to me I could easily compensate for this with a little extra
thinset. But I don't know if that's the best course.



Tile it, no problem!
Greg

How far up S**t Creek am I?

Flat is important but level is not as far as tile is concerned. Try to get some
idea how much and where material needs to be added/removed then decide the best
tactic. Your reference book should spell out reasonable allowable thinset
thicknesses. You may want to rent a concrete grinder if there are areas that
need it to get the thinset to the right thickness. It helps to use a long
straight edge to find high and low spots, like an angle iron about the length
of the room. Survey leveling compounds as another way to fix the problem. If
you're working with a good tile suppliers, they can help a lot. Good luck.

Joe

In article ,
(MDixon1918) wrote:

Hey, list. I was getting ready to tile the concrete floor of the kids' new
basement playroom and decided to check my how-to-tile book (Setting Tile by
Michael Byrne). Just to see if I was missing anything, you know.

Apparently, I am. Byrne makes quite a point of the importance of a flat
floor.
Specifically, he says that a concrete slab shouldn't be more than one-eighth
out of level in 10 feet. Well. I had noticed that the floor dropped off
toward one end of the room. So, I took a level to it and discovered that it
dropped about 1.25 inches in about eight feet.

This is a relatively new (2000) slab. It's not cracked. It just slopes at
one
end.

I laid the tiles (12 inches square) out on the floor and identified the
location where they rock slightly. So I presume that is where the slope
begins. It seems to me I could easily compensate for this with a little
extra
thinset. But I don't know if that's the best course.

The author doesn't say what will or could happen if I go ahead and tile a
floor
like this. So, I'll put it to you folks: How far up S**t Creek am I?

Mark

Like Joe said, an un-level isn't ever a problem for tiling, but an
un-flat floor is. You might want to consider subflooring plywood sheets
down tight to the slab for a nice flat surface instead of tiling
directly onto the slab and futzing around with large expanses of thinset
and trying to level the thinset. Besides, it occurs to me that built-up
thinset might even compress down over time under high traffic and really
send you up **** Creek when those tiles start loosening or lifting off.

AJS

Rather than using thicker than normal Thinset think about cutting the
tile along the line where the slope begins. This way you'll have a
joint there and be less likely to have tiles cracking over time.

RB

MDixon1918 wrote:
Hey, list. I was getting ready to tile the concrete floor of the kids' new
basement playroom and decided to check my how-to-tile book (Setting Tile by
Michael Byrne). Just to see if I was missing anything, you know.

Apparently, I am. Byrne makes quite a point of the importance of a flat floor.
Specifically, he says that a concrete slab shouldn't be more than one-eighth
out of level in 10 feet. Well. I had noticed that the floor dropped off
toward one end of the room. So, I took a level to it and discovered that it
dropped about 1.25 inches in about eight feet.

This is a relatively new (2000) slab. It's not cracked. It just slopes at one
end.

I laid the tiles (12 inches square) out on the floor and identified the
location where they rock slightly. So I presume that is where the slope
begins. It seems to me I could easily compensate for this with a little extra
thinset. But I don't know if that's the best course.

The author doesn't say what will or could happen if I go ahead and tile a floor
like this. So, I'll put it to you folks: How far up S**t Creek am I?

Mark

Is he using vinyl or ceramic tile. No problem with vinyl, it will bend and
follow a contour. Ceramic is a different animal.

This is a relatively new (2000) slab. It's not cracked. It just slopes at
one end.

I laid the tiles (12 inches square) out on the floor and identified the
location where they rock slightly. So I presume that is where the slope
begins. It seems to me I could easily compensate for this with a little extra
thinset. But I don't know if that's the best course.

I don't think putting in a thick layer of thinset is a good idea. This
is simply delaying the tough work. This means instead of spending time
to level the floor, you end up spending a lot of time to put down the
tiles. What I mean is that laying down tiles on thick layer of thinset
is a slow process, and this probably hard for a DIYer to get a good
final result. A skilled tiles-setter probably can do this; but a DIYer
should not want this extra complexity. Therefore, you may find that
you really are not saving your time by not leveling the floor because
you end up spending more time in laying down the tiles, and you may
not get a good final result.

My suggestion is:

Find out how bad the floor really is. You need two persons to do
this. You can ask your friend to hold on with one end of a string, and
you hold another end of the string, and "kind of" scanning through the
whole floor this way to find out if the floor is really flat or level
-- kind of getting a general picture of your floor. I really doubt
that your floor can be flat but not level. I have a feeling that it is
probably both not-flat and not-level. In that case, you need to draw a
level line near the bottom of the wall, and do that "scanning with a
string" procedure again. This time, you need the string to reference
to the level line, and you want to mark all the high spots and low
spots, and see how far off the ups and downs are. At that time, you
will have a better idea of what to do next.

Hope everything will be fine.

Jay Chan