I am intending to tile a kitchen floor. I have removed the original
plastic/vinyl tiles laid in the 60's I think. The concrete floor is
still covered with the old black bitumen like tile adhesive.
Can I tile straight onto this? I was thinking of priming the surface
with some PVA first. The floor is level but small surface undulations
from the old adhesive. Will the new tile adhesive smooth out into these
small undulations?
TIA,
Tank

For this particular one I would ask your local tile merchant (not tops
tiles or the likes... a proper merchant). All I can say is that PVA
will do you no good. Bitumen is already water resistant, so no point
worrying about sealing the floor.

My gut reaction is that you are OK going straight onto Bitumen since it
can also be used as a primer for gloss paints etc. Check however that
it is sound and that no areas are lifting from the concrete.

Why not lay a tile and leabe it for a week and see how solid it is.
After a few days you would still expect it to lify easily, after a week
it may lift, but not easily.

Calum Sabey
(NewArk Traditional Kitchens 01556 690544)

I have only recently had the same problem in my kitchen. You need a highly polimer modified adhesive. Sourced some ideal stuff from BAL that bonds to this gear. Use either their Rapidset Flexible (cures well quick) or Single Part Flexible (take a few hours) tile adhesive which comes in 25kg bags.

You can buy it at Tile base or Topps tiles or any reputable tile merchant for that matter.

Worked a treat on mine, as I bonded some insulation with this gear to the bitumen adhesive left after I popped up all my plastic (brown - nice!) tiles.

check it out for yourself:

http://www.bal-adhesives.co.uk/bal/b...t_flexible.asp

Hope this helps!!