My brother is going to fully tile my bathroom using travertine stone
( which was a bit of a bargain !)
Anyway, I was just wandering is there any chance that the weight of
all this stone could cause any problems to the structure of the
house ? My house is a brick and block type construction and is an end
of terrace with the bathroom upstairs. They have taken the block wall
back to the block work but the other walls are plasterboard.. I am
wandering if ceramic would have been the more sensible option. does
anyone know exactly what the weight difference is between stone /
ceramic ? I think they have got about 26 M sq. of the stuff including
the floor that is.

Simon

wrote:
My brother is going to fully tile my bathroom using travertine stone
( which was a bit of a bargain !)
Anyway, I was just wandering is there any chance that the weight of
all this stone could cause any problems to the structure of the
house ? My house is a brick and block type construction and is an end
of terrace with the bathroom upstairs. They have taken the block wall
back to the block work but the other walls are plasterboard.. I am
wandering if ceramic would have been the more sensible option. does
anyone know exactly what the weight difference is between stone /
ceramic ? I think they have got about 26 M sq. of the stuff including
the floor that is.

Simon

Ive got lots of stone here.

The good news is that it isn't a huge weight compared with e.g. a person
standing on a floor.
An unless you arer using inch thck stome, its not a deal heavier than
quality ceramic tiles.

However you should pay a LOT of attention to the floor joists..any flex
on tiles or stone will have the buggers cracking off, and although thick
flexible cement helps, if your slabs are big, the problem gets worse

So put in maybe extra joist, and herringbone bracing, and sheet the lot
in a good ply befre tiliing, though chip is as good if you don't let it
get wet.


One final warning. IIRC Travertine is a limestone of sorts, and is
susceptible to acid attack. Two common sources of acid in a bathroom are
descaler and urine. Less common ones may be fruit juices and wine. I
suggest you test your slabs backsides firss, to see if this is an issue,
and use plenty of sealer on them.

Also, when grouting, this means that one of the best cleanup methods
available - i.e. using brick acid or descaler to get grout smears off -
is a nono. You MUST wash and sponge the tiles down every time you use
cement or grout before it sets. I think I did the sealing part beore the
grouting when I used stone, this helps as the sealer is more easly cleaned.

On Oct 15, 10:56*am, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
wrote:
My brother is going to fully tile my bathroom using travertine stone
( which was a bit of a bargain !)
Anyway, I was just wandering is there any chance that the weight of
all this stone *could cause any problems to the structure of the
house ? My house is a brick and block type construction and is an end
of terrace with the bathroom upstairs. They have taken the block wall
back to *the block work but the other walls are plasterboard.. I am
wandering if ceramic would have been the more sensible option. does
anyone know exactly what the weight difference is between stone /
ceramic ? I think they have got about 26 M sq. of the stuff including
the floor that is.

Simon

Ive got lots of stone here.

The good news is that it isn't a huge weight compared with e.g. a person
standing on a floor.
An unless you arer using inch thck stome, its not a deal heavier than
quality ceramic tiles.

However you should pay a LOT of attention to the floor joists..any flex
on tiles or stone will have the buggers cracking off, and although thick
flexible cement helps, if your slabs are big, the problem gets worse

So put in maybe extra joist, and herringbone bracing, and sheet the lot
in a good ply befre tiliing, though chip is as good if you don't let it
get wet.

One final warning. IIRC Travertine is a limestone of sorts, and is
susceptible to acid attack. Two common sources of acid in a bathroom are
descaler and urine. Less common ones may be fruit juices and wine. I
suggest you test your slabs backsides firss, to see if this is an issue,
and use plenty of sealer on them.

Also, when grouting, this means that one of the best cleanup methods
available - i.e. using brick acid or descaler to get grout smears off -
is a nono. You MUST wash and sponge the tiles down every time you use
cement or grout before it sets. I think I did the sealing part beore the
grouting when I used stone, this helps as the sealer is more easly cleaned.

Thanks for your reply. My brother is the expert tiler , I just wanted
to check that the house wasn't going to fall down though LOL . Maybe
I am in shock a bit at seeing my old bathroom ripped out back to the
bare walls They are using some ply and extra screws on the floor,
although it did not look like very thick stuff. Also flexible
adhesive like you say.

I noticed that there are what appear to be travertine floor tiles in
my work place, and many of them are cracked, even though this office
was a complete new build project 10 years ago or so. I don't know if
they would necessarily specified solid floors though . Hmm...