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Tiling across depression in floor

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 Mountain Llama 13 Mar 2013
Plan to tile kitchen floor with 30cm sq stone tiles next week but fairly level floor has squaring depression measuring 60 x 100cm, 5 mm at deepest. My question is can I use adhesive to fill the gap as self level way seams a bit OTT for small area.

Would welcome advice as l'm a novice tiler.

Thanks in advance, cheers Davy
Bobz 13 Mar 2013
In reply to Mountain Llama: Yep just fill the hole with tile adhesive. you should be able to judge it as you go along - put the extra adhesive on the back of the tile though. tile glue takes a good while to dry so you will be able to mess about a bit to get them level. maybe a good idea to do an area not in the depression first so you know what level to finish to with the other tiles.
 Dax H 13 Mar 2013
In reply to Mountain Llama: Fill it with self leveling compound.
 handjammer 13 Mar 2013
In reply to Mountain Llama: Use levelling compound a day or two before you start tiling, that way you're not messing around with extra glue and faffing around with sorting the levels out. It's dead easy to mix and use -make a watery mix and roughly spread it around with a plastering trowel - the compound will do all the rest and the you're left with a uniformly flat area to tile - much faster.

If you tile around the depressed area before returning to fill it in then it's too easy to make a mistake with the setting of the surrounding tiles, then you're stuffed.

How thick are the tiles? Normally floor tiles are around 8-10mm thick, the thinner they are the weaker they are. I used slate tiles for my hallway, and they're a proper pain because they are all varying thicknesses! It is invariably a good idea to glue up both the floor and the back of the tile, this also gives you a bit of play if the tiles vary in thickness.

Sound silly but hoover the floor first, remember too to seal / prime the floor with a PVA and water mix - this will enable the adhesive to bond much better. I usually prime a few square metres at at time and then start tiling as I find the tiles have a stronger bond to the floor.

Sorry I've been overly verbose but I hope there's some useful info in there that you can use. I'm happy to help if I can and you're welcome to PM me if you wish.
 digby 13 Mar 2013
In reply to Mountain Llama:

Amazing. 3 replies and two of them completely ignore your stated aim of not using self levelling compound!

Yes the adhesive will be fine for gap filling. Obviously if the tiles and the floor and very non-absorbent the drying time will be delayed so you shouldn't walk on that bit. Or try and level the floor with the adhesive, let it set, then tile as normal.
In reply to digby:
> (In reply to Mountain Llama)
>
> Amazing. 3 replies and two of them completely ignore your stated aim of not using self levelling compound!

The OP said that they thought self-levelling compound was a bit OTT not that they didn't want to use it.

ALC
In reply to handjammer: thanks for info, much appreciated. Tiles are granite, approx 10mm thck, but found a few which are thicker than majority.

Cheers Save

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