Anhydrite adhesive test.

[Ajax123]

Ah yes. That would help enormously. For some reason I thought this one was unheated...

 

[Gazzer]

The floor is unheated. The rooms though do have radiators.

 

[jonnyc]

omg!!!
i think we are going round in circles and this is so very confusing.
what has come out of this thread though which was not brought up before in anything i have read is the Creative impressions adhesive which sounds very encouraging.
I can honestly say that i have never come across a system of tiling that has caused so much confusion and resulted in so much angst for tilers and failures.
there is nothing close !!!

 

[Gazzer]

Very true Jonny.
The talk around here is all of problems, failures and head scratching. I dont want to be one of the victims , hence my openly talking about it and trying to sort a reliable method for it.

 

[bugs183]

Too right lads, it has been a nightmare, i've been tiling over 22 years and the only thing that has come close was when they dropped porcelain tiles on us. Nothing cut them and then there was no adhesive around to stick them, how there weren't more failures god only knows.
I've been determined to find out as much as i can and find solutions as to be honest i like floor tiling and not wall tiling, it was looking like giving up trying to tiles these screeds, and i'm being serious here, i simply hadn't found any adhesive i trusted.
It does look like Creative Impressions could be the light at the end of the tunnel. They have been mentioned before, but seem to have been under the radar a bit.
Just finishing my big stone floor on Anhydrite and will have to wait tuill the end of October before i get try it out.

 

[Gazzer]

My local stockist was asked to take on Creatives adhesive but they needed to have a pallet at a time and they just dont get the call for it at the moment.

 

[bugs183]

I'm looking into all the ins and outs with all the related faff that needs to be addressed with these screeds, so watch this space, i may have a cunning plan....

 

[jonnyc]

Too right lads, it has been a nightmare, i've been tiling over 22 years and the only thing that has come close was when they dropped porcelain tiles on us. Nothing cut them and then there was no adhesive around to stick them, how there weren't more failures god only knows.
I've been determined to find out as much as i can and find solutions as to be honest i like floor tiling and not wall tiling, it was looking like giving up trying to tiles these screeds, and i'm being serious here, i simply hadn't found any adhesive i trusted.#


It does look like Creative Impressions could be the light at the end of the tunnel. They have been mentioned before, but seem to have been under the radar a bit.
Just finishing my big stone floor on Anhydrite and will have to wait tuill the end of October before i get try it out.

you just mentioned that youve been in the game for 22 years, which is very interesting..Look back at this thread and others and i think we will find that many of the contributors to threads about anhydrite screeds are long time served tilers. just this thread alone sees you, sir ramic , deanotile, ray tt and me wanting answers.gary the tiler has given masses of input based on his experience abroad from which we now recieve product.
Its not that we dont want to change what with new products and fast track systems!!!!!
its completely the opposite.
none of us would be in business if we have had to second guess and waste so much of our time on anew
tile laying system in the past !!
we survive because we care about what we do and collectively have a mass of experience in all tile related fixing .

 

[jonnyc]

what i am trying to convey is :
if very experienced tilers are having problems getting it right on these screeds , what chance does a newly qualified professional tiler with less experience have?

 

[bugs183]

Quite right Jonny.
But I think it goes further than that:
New tilers are now presented with a blistering choice of Manufacturers, Adhesives and Substrates etc. They are used to the huge array of situations that now occur.

When i started (which was in 1985 labouring for dad, then tiled professionally in 1991), we had very few of the the problems we had now as there was little adhesive choice and the substrates were render, cement screed, plaster and plasterboard for 99.99% of the jobs.
You knew that Bal Grip (green writing, ammonia, awful with a hangover) stuck to everything and couldn't be removed off shower bases or baths after a couple of hours. Bal Wall was the only other wall tile adhesive you needed.
Bal Gold Star was lovely to use, the New Rapid set (wow three hours!) stuck, and for mega jobs Bal Flex (yuk, but it stuck).
Nothing needed to be primed, sanded, moisture tested etc etc..

Everything stuck to everything else!!!!

Now with underfloor heating, porcelain, anhydrite blah blah, you feel you need to be blessed by god for anything to actually work.
We have had it straight forward and now things have become so complicated and advanced that we are at a loss to understand why.

Maybe we are being Ludites, but i don't believe this at all, as all the above are here trying to grapple with this problem, i know my mate who's been atiler for 4 years will just look at me blankly if i mention anhydrite, he must have tiled loads by now....

As you say it's because we do care and tiling has got under our skin and we look at everything a little differently, especially all these new systems like Polypipes dreadful u/f/h system with it's reps quoting utter rubbish at us!!

 

[Gazzer]

What winds me up is this " they use it abroad for years and dont have these problems"...yeah but In other countries drying times may be less due to climate or their standards differ as in the screeder sands the floor after about 2 weeks and tests the RH.
i just get a call months down the line and then I give them the info I know....Gypsum adhesive, sand floor and RH test....Blank looks all round then the cherry on the icing....."We were told it was faster this way !!"....yeah for the screeder it was faster !

So while I am moaning...I thought the screeds were super flat and smooth ! What a load of crock !...I saw better concrete floors during my time in Australia.
This latest floor resembles the surface of the moon...and you see all the dappling marks.

 

[bugs183]

The one i'm doing in Solihul is the same Sir.
The point where one room leads into another has been out on numerous places, you have to get all the cuts in first just to check how the levels are working.
As i said in my second post i saw tem pour Agilia Horizontal which is a cement based verison, it looked ace to me!

 

[DHTiling]

Aguila is ok but expansion joints go in way too often..

 

[The D]

The one i'm doing in Solihul is the same Sir.
The point where one room leads into another has been out on numerous places, you have to get all the cuts in first just to check how the levels are working.
As i said in my second post i saw tem pour Agilia Horizontal which is a cement based verison, it looked ace to me!

Hang on a cotton picking…. Solihull is my patch I’M NOT HAPPY :ban::lol:

 

[Andrew]

I drive my wife mad with just how much tiling
Is under my skin. I just thought I would
Through this in the mix, why is it that gypsum
And cement seem to work harmoniously
In the world of plastering?

 

[The D]

i drive my wife mad with just how much tiling
is under my skin. I just thought i would
through this in the mix, why is it that gypsum
and cement seem to work harmoniously
in the world of plastering?

do they ??

 

[DHTiling]

:lol:... sorry had to laff then... gypsum and cement do not mix in any situation without priming/

 

[bugs183]

Eh Deano i was thinking of you, i have saved you the agro of a Anhydrite screed job!!

 

[Andrew]

Sand and cement render with a gypsum finish

 

[DHTiling]

Sand and cement render with a gypsum finish

The cement has hydrated so no reaction.. it is putting cement to gypsum 🙂 not gypsum to cement.

 

[White Room]

The gypsum plaster is put on the next day to render backings so some of the moisture is left so not draw moisture out of the finish or it could become friable or get crazing.

Went through this on the mapei day and the guy who was giving the lesson thought that we put a barrier between the finish and render which should'nt be necessary unless the background has been left so long it's so dry it needs a bonding agent/pva.

 

[Protilers]

Well.... thanks for taking time out of your day to educate the masses in you findings........great stuff........thanks

Lee

 

[bugs183]

Tis an honour, it wasn't to scale that you fellas do stuff though!

 

[Andrew]

Ok makes sense! Cheers dave clears that up! I don't claim to know loads about anhydride screeds. Have tiled quite a few. one of the first with builders spec not sanded ardex p51 primer tile fixed with cement based flexi, I was ignorant to the type of screed and didn't question it then. That was few years ago and doing fine! I've returned to it and it's good as new. Unlike the 30 m I had to reset that was fixed with gypsum base. Just leaves me a bit unsure

 

[DHTiling]

Every day can be a learning day... keep tabs on this thread as we are all learning. 🙂

 

[bugs183]

Well thats the plan, it would be great to be able to approach this with confidence.
As i said earlier Sab at Creative Impressions spoke with good authority and approached things from a tilers perspective, we were on the same wavelength, so touch wood in a few weeks i'll be in a good mood using his adhesive!

 

[Gazzer]

As another very small test, while using Gypfix with porcelain tiles I spread the back of a tile and put it to one side. 6 days later the adhesive has stuck extremely well to the tile. This tile was not fixed to the screed so this makes me wonder why ?

 

[Ajax123]

As another very small test, while using Gypfix with porcelain tiles I spread the back of a tile and put it to one side. 6 days later the adhesive has stuck extremely well to the tile. This tile was not fixed to the screed so this makes me wonder why ?

It will most likely be due to strength gain due to moisture loss. Gypsum loses strength when it is wet or rather gains strength by losing moisture. It has free moisture loss from the underside of the adhesive. If it was stuck on the screed this loss of moisture wold be impeded by the fact that it is trapped between the screed and the tile. It would achieve enough strength to stick as the screed would pull the moisture but but as this would dissipate into the top part of the screed the moisture loss therefore strength gain may be slower. The chemical reaction or crystallisation of gypsum in anhydrite screed accounts for about 65% of its overall strength. The rest of its strength is due to friction between the gypsum crystals which increases with drying. i have to make the assumption that gypsum adhesive is similar. If that makes sense.

 

[jquin]

Ok makes sense! Cheers dave clears that up! I don't claim to know loads about anhydride screeds. Have tiled quite a few. one of the first with builders spec not sanded ardex p51 primer tile fixed with cement based flexi, I was ignorant to the type of screed and didn't question it then. That was few years ago and doing fine! I've returned to it and it's good as new. Unlike the 30 m I had to reset that was fixed with gypsum base. Just leaves me a bit unsure

Andrew - might have a job for you if you're interested. Not far from Surrey. Have sent you a PM.

 

[Dan]

Just bumping some of the older popular (sometimes not so popular) threads. Probably wont be current discussion these days but I just need to do it. So just ignore the thread if it's not current for you.