Tiling On Timber Floorboards

Tiling over wood wood in any form serves as a poor subfloor for ceramic or stone tile.

Tiling on timber floorboards.

Floor tiles on the other hand are rigid. Checking for any creaking. Good luck with your project. I am wanting to install ceramic tile flooring in my upstairs bathroom in an old house.

Tiling on floorboards in bathrooms is pretty commonplace because of this but getting this wrong can result in broken floor tiles and cracks appearing in the grout. Timber and non tongue and groove floorboards and chipboard are usually subject to large amounts of deflection movement and therefore cannot be tiled onto with even the most flexible of tile adhesives. Wood naturally warps twists swells and shrinks due to change in temperature or humidity. Have a good stomp around your room.

This means you will need to strengthen the substrate first with either a levelling compound tile backer board or plywood. The best approach would be to remove the wood flooring and screw down a layer of 5 8 or thicker plywood followed by a layer of 1 2 cement backer board before laying the tile. Laying them directly on top of floorboards is a recipe for disaster because the timber underneath will force the tiles to move. Plywood or backer board both.

Can you tile on wood floorboards. The floor is in good shape but i don t know what type of subfloor is under the linoleum. Long answer to can i tile directly onto wooden floorboards. Tile is hard and will break or dislodge if the surface bends under the load and many wood surfaces can expand or contract negatively.

Use our guide below to learn how to tile onto timber floors. To install ceramic tile over wood the wood surface must be structurally sound enough to support the weight of the tile. Chipboard cushioned vinyl flooring particle boards of any type oriented strand board osb interior grade plywood tongue and groove planking and hardwood floors are unsuitable substrates for direct installation of ceramic tile. It wouldn t matter what shape the tiles or what they are made of.

Lay plywood or hardie backer boards onto the floorboards first using a bed of tile adhesive to ensure a sound flat surface which you can then tile onto. Unfortunately wooden flooring is often found in bathrooms and kitchens areas of the home which are more suited to durable and waterproof tiled surfaces. It currently has linoleum in there. Natural timber shrinks and expands.

Some diy floor tilers try to get around this by using a flexible floor adhesive but report mixed results.