Discuss Sorting wall before tiling kitchen backsplash (runout / bow) in the DIY Tiling Forum area at TilersForums. The USA and UK Tiling Forum (Also now Aus, Canada, ROI, and more)

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Hi,
I'm trying to assess what prep is needed on the walls for my kitchen backsplash. We'll be using a metro tile or longer rectangular tile (up to 300mm length) in brickbond and as the walls have some bow on one side and a fairly substantial runout on the other, I'm trying to workout what I need to do for surface prep before getting going.

Worktops + upstands are already in place so removing large sections of wall as not going to be straightforward. House is also 120yrs old and walls in the area to be tiled are a mix of plasterboard and old lath & plaster.

On the hob side the bow is maximum behind the hob itself, ca. 8mm beyond the back of the upstand running to flush with the back of the upstand at either end. Walls are painted / plasterboard but where the joiner has removed the old kitchen the paper is torn on the board surface.
On the sink side its slightly worse as the bow goes out to about 10mm and runs for about 1m across the back of the sink area.

I was thinking that I would remove all the loose junk from the board, key in the small painted areas and then prime. But I'm not sure if I should build out the gap with cement board or some quickset filler, or if I would get away with just using a trowel with bigger teeth in the gap area to make up the bed thickness. Some tile at the ends will have the wall surface flush with the upstand and some will have at least this 10mm gap behind which feels a bit excessive for the tile adhesive.
Could I use a cement based adhesive to pack this out or should I be building out the wall first?

Thanks,
 

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Prep work is the key to success.
I would try to level up the wall before anything else. Use a straight edge to skim the wall.

Thanks.
Any particular skim up product? Id thought about using some mix up filler but most recommendations seem to be to avoid that as they're either not compatible or take weeks to cure off. Would a powdered quickset tile cement like mapei proflexible be suitable?

Cheers in advance.
 

Tile Marble Granite

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Thanks.
Any particular skim up product? Id thought about using some mix up filler but most recommendations seem to be to avoid that as they're either not compatible or take weeks to cure off. Would a powdered quickset tile cement like mapei proflexible be suitable?

Cheers in advance.
yes, you can use tile adhesive to level up the wall
 
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Just dropping back to say job is complete.
Thanks for the help.
 

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