Larsen Tile Adhesive Fails - Anybody else experienced this? - Tile Advice

[Lou]

I had an issue recently that I've never seen before and any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I used a Larsen acrylic primer on gyspum walls as instructed on product (walls had been skimmed 8+ weeks previous and moisture tested prior to sealing and tiling). 18 months later and it seems the sealer has not bonded to the wall adhesive. Wall was coated with a 12mm trowel and a standard set flexible adhesive used, the tiles are 900mm by 150mm thin porcelain and within weight limit of plaster. Tiles have now come away from the wall with 100% of adhesive on the tiles and 0% left on the wall with sealer still appearing tacky on the walls. Walls are tiled 1.2m high around the room and the issue is only where sealer was applied to gypsum walls,other walls are scratch coated and solid as should be expected. Usually removal of tiles like these should take plaster and all with it, is this is a sealer failure or am I missing something? Apologies for the long post but I'm in the trade a long time and never encountered this.
Thanks

This was mentioned in another thread, so I thought I'd ask the question to others to get a feel for it.

Larsen rep "blamed everything but their products and said their report was final".

Anybody has any larsen tile adhesive fails recently? Perhaps a bad batch they're not pulling?

 

[Antrim tiling]

Not fit for purpose, this product has came into question numerous occasions.
Larsen is a local company here in N Ireland and is avoided by all reputable tile installers and tile shops. Enough said

 

[TKD TILING]

I had exactly the same issue a year or so ago with Weber primer and adhesives. Identical scenario and all I could put it down to was the primer failing. Either it hadn’t dried before I tiled or the mix was too weak. Gypsum and cement do not like each other!
It was one wall of a shower, gypsum skimmed hardwall, two other shower walls were hardiebacker which was 100% fine.
Took the wall tiles down, used different primer and adhesives to re-install, all good now.
Now we will only tile on tile boards or if we do need to tile on skim, we tank in wet zones or use Tilemaster Primegrip or Mapei Ecoprime.
I understand this doesn’t help you much but you’re not alone!

 

[Dan]

Please login properly if you have an account here. Don't want to open this thread up to possible abuse.

 

[bsc ceramics]

They have always had a bad reputation lumpy adhesive weak grout. would never use it
and their rep dont give you much hope when all he does is blame everything else

 

[Taylormade]

I have only used Larsen on a few occasions. Not an adhesive I would normally choose. I had a pal who started to stock it sometime ago. He asked me to try it so l did. Told him that I wasn’t impressed with it. As said before lumpy and I was not confident using it.
Coincidentally yesterday I stripped a shower out for a customer that I had fitted about 8 years ago. I had used Larsen adhesive and the wall tiles were a pig to remove. The adhesive had certainly worked well. However a few areas under the floor tiles had de bonded. Not enough for them to come loose but strange.
Bottom line is I would not use it again.

 

[Dan]

I have only used Larsen on a few occasions. Not an adhesive I would normally choose. I had a pal who started to stock it sometime ago. He asked me to try it so l did. Told him that I wasn’t impressed with it. As said before lumpy and I was not confident using it.
Coincidentally yesterday I stripped a shower out for a customer that I had fitted about 8 years ago. I had used Larsen adhesive and the wall tiles were a pig to remove. The adhesive had certainly worked well. However a few areas under the floor tiles had de bonded. Not enough for them to come loose but strange.
Bottom line is I would not use it again.

Thanks for joining in mate. Keep it up.

 

[faceman]

Is this an issue with the adhesive or the primer? I've used them all and if you follow the instructions when you are using cement adhesive the primer definitely forms a skin on the surface of the plaster. Larsen ,tilemaster and norcross both do this if it's to neat. We dillute the norcross 1-1 now and this seems to help. I've done repairs and it's brutal so kept to this one

 

[Tiler87]

Is this an issue with the adhesive or the primer? I've used them all and if you follow the instructions when you are using cement adhesive the primer definitely forms a skin on the surface of the plaster. Larsen ,tilemaster and norcross both do this if it's to neat. We dillute the norcross 1-1 now and this seems to help. I've done repairs and it's brutal so kept to this one

I think it was a bad batch of sealer, manufacturers instructions were followed but when I removed a tile the sealer was still tacky on the wall no adhesive had taken to the wall and 100% of adhesive had remained on the tile. Tiles used were discontinued and I had to use a concrete grinding disc to remove the adhesive from the tile. The rep told me it had "bonded for a period of time" a slogan I doubt Larsen will be adopting.