Spot fixing

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I see where everyone is coming from, but my stand has to be, if we can prep walls/floors to the best standard possible ie. get them right plumb, level, and lineable. There would be no need for dot and dab. Just my take on it.

 

[bugs183]

I think it comes down to not wanting to spend money on adhesives, and believe big tiles are stronger and easier to fix.
As Deano says the old school way with sand and cement wall fixing was to spot them, but how many people these days especially younger folk even knew tiles were fixed with sand and cement?
It's just human nature being what it is and in tiling people don't like paying money on adhesives and still believe and say 'oh i got bigger tiles cus it's easier for you to fix'

 

[Aston]

i agree that some of the standard of plastering is not as good as it was but i was also under the assumption, that floating out a wall to accomodate tiling along with floor screeding was part of a tilers duties?

 

[bugs183]

I don't agree with that. I've been tiling over 20 years and i've never screeded a floor (done wetroom shower bases), with the advent of adhesives the screeding in my view has been passed to professional screeders.
I've been asked but always say get a screeder, no one has ever said it was my job.
Same as plastering. Plasterers used to tile back in the day, but with the advent of adhesives the two trades have parted. So if a plasterer has done the job, you expect him to have done his job well and made it flat and plumb.
I'm not knocking lads here that do it all, but on the whole tilers tile and plasterers and screeders prepare the substrates.

 

[White Room]

I always considered it as part of the plasterers job, any job where even kitchen worktops were going I would make sure they were flat as the same for areas of tiling.

 

[Aston]

maybe it was just fizzled out in the 1980's. but i could have sworn it was part of a time served tilers duties??

just to be clear, i dont mean the tiler would float out walls on site or do 100m floor screeds prior to tiling, i mean, they had to be trained how to do it incase they had to rectify a substrate on say a private job/contract?

 

[White Room]

I do know that tilers done sand/cement many years ago on walls and even screeding, I've seen jobs advertised for renderers and skimming....even the plastering trade seems to be breaking up...

 

[bugs183]

Depends how long time served is!
My dads 72, been tiling nearly 50 years, he learnt on sand and cement, it didn't take him long to say no to screeding!!!!!
I think tiling and screeding are now very different diciplines as before you screeded your floor and popped your tiles into it.
Now the process is very different. Mind you there are still gangs of tilers sand and cement screeding and tiling. There's a team of Germans that fly all over the world tiling for Aldi and Lidl, these guys can motor, they'll screed and tile a supermarket faster than most guys would lay with adhesive!!

 

[The D]

Years ago i don't think tiling was a separate trade, it was encompassed by mason's plasterers so they would have naturally fixed in mortar, even when i was a young lad and we fixed in sand and cement i cant remember blobbing ,we used to screed,then the tiles that had been soaked and drained were slurry d with neat OPC then positioned on the screed then a flat section of wood placed over them then beaten down......or the screed sprinkled with opc, then splashed with water tiles layd/beaten down

Ok sorry my mistake it was never done like that and the hundred’s of m2 I took of the walls in the mid 80s was all in my imagination. Well I was taking a lot of drugs at the time.

 

[bansko]

I started my apprenticeship in 1975 and all floor tiling was done monolithic, it was the tilers job to screed and fix in one operation. Wall tiling was mainly adhesive but there was the odd job where the spec required sand&cement fixing ,pit head baths etc. As far as floor screeding goes my opinion is its a tilers job as and when required, i dont particularly like doing it but i know its going to be right. These days it only ever seems to be when working to german specs ie, aldi, Lidl, BMW workshop floors etc that its required, i say this as its my era 50+ and wouldnt expect any of the younger lads to be able to do it. They were good days as there was never any shortage of work about and you were very well paid for it, these days we seem to follow so called floor screeders who go for the shovel finish, and dry liners who have been on a 3 week course. Its not good.