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Hi Guys,
I had my kitchen floor tiled a few weeks back. The floor is a screed slab of approx. 24m2 over wet UFH pipes clipped to Celotex.
This screed was “hand mixed” vs ready mixed off of a truck and laid around 100 days ago of a thickness of 60mm.
Around 45 days ago the UFH was commissioned and set on a low heat and slowly cranked up and has been running on a stat since then. The screed did not crack in any places and the screed itself remains extremely strong and hard wearing.
The UFH was switched off a few days before tiling commenced so the slab was “room temp”.
So the tiler came in the morning, hoovered the screed, primed, then laid the porcelain tiles using BAL one flex adhesive directly onto the screed without the use of a decoupling matting. Tiles were laid on a full bed of adhesive (I don’t believe they were back buttered), Mapai colur plus grout was used – at this time I thought nothing of it.
So its 2 week roughly since they were laid – great job in terms of cuts, neatness and they feel solid under foot.
Before I switch the UFH back on I thought I would do a bit of research on the best practice method with turning it back on when I stumbled across some info which says that a DITRA/Decupling membrane should be used in these circumstances to better insure the tiles don’t crack/pop up.
I spoke with the tiler to get his opinion on it, and he said that it will be fine as long as I slowly crank up the UFH to running temp over the next week or so as per guide lines. He said he has used a good flexible adhesive and we are using porcelain tiles and that no cracks in the screed before starting and definitely dried out fully, so if any cracks were going to form, they would have by now. He said that he would only ever ditra UFH screed if the customer was using natural stone as this can be prone to cracking due to the natural lines in the stone itself are prone to cracking.
Clearly nothing can be done about it now other than wait and see and to be honest this post is pretty pointless
- however I’m a little nervy about switching UFH back on.
What’s the verdict on this matter with the pros on this forum? Likely going to be fine or more likely to fail in the months/years ahead?
FWIW my UFH water temp does not need to be much more than 40 to 45 degrees to sufficiently warm the room, so the actual heat of the floor under foot is subtle.
I had my kitchen floor tiled a few weeks back. The floor is a screed slab of approx. 24m2 over wet UFH pipes clipped to Celotex.
This screed was “hand mixed” vs ready mixed off of a truck and laid around 100 days ago of a thickness of 60mm.
Around 45 days ago the UFH was commissioned and set on a low heat and slowly cranked up and has been running on a stat since then. The screed did not crack in any places and the screed itself remains extremely strong and hard wearing.
The UFH was switched off a few days before tiling commenced so the slab was “room temp”.
So the tiler came in the morning, hoovered the screed, primed, then laid the porcelain tiles using BAL one flex adhesive directly onto the screed without the use of a decoupling matting. Tiles were laid on a full bed of adhesive (I don’t believe they were back buttered), Mapai colur plus grout was used – at this time I thought nothing of it.
So its 2 week roughly since they were laid – great job in terms of cuts, neatness and they feel solid under foot.
Before I switch the UFH back on I thought I would do a bit of research on the best practice method with turning it back on when I stumbled across some info which says that a DITRA/Decupling membrane should be used in these circumstances to better insure the tiles don’t crack/pop up.
I spoke with the tiler to get his opinion on it, and he said that it will be fine as long as I slowly crank up the UFH to running temp over the next week or so as per guide lines. He said he has used a good flexible adhesive and we are using porcelain tiles and that no cracks in the screed before starting and definitely dried out fully, so if any cracks were going to form, they would have by now. He said that he would only ever ditra UFH screed if the customer was using natural stone as this can be prone to cracking due to the natural lines in the stone itself are prone to cracking.
Clearly nothing can be done about it now other than wait and see and to be honest this post is pretty pointless
- however I’m a little nervy about switching UFH back on.What’s the verdict on this matter with the pros on this forum? Likely going to be fine or more likely to fail in the months/years ahead?
FWIW my UFH water temp does not need to be much more than 40 to 45 degrees to sufficiently warm the room, so the actual heat of the floor under foot is subtle.
