Opps - Wrong Mastic :eek:

[stiffknee]

This is a nice forum. Its hard to find real world advice with tile work. its always been buy what they stock and hope for the best. I do need to post a question and hope my tile job is not to far gone at this point.

I installed a kitchen floor in our house 6 years ago (25 by 14) porcelain, hand grouted with two thumbs so I did'nt think much about tiling the boys bathroom.

I, like so many mis-fortunate souls; got talked into using a premix mastic. My current project is a 6 by 5 kids bathroom floor. I went with a Porcelain pinwheel pattern (4 12x12 with a 6x6 in the middle) and Laticrete Mastic 15 for both the HardyBoard to plywood and the tile. After installing the tile I noticed a small box on the tub not to use on floor tiles larger then 6x6. Futher reading on the manufactures web site stated not to use on porcelain tiles more than 2x2 on the floor

so here I am thinking that if I give the floor a couple of days to setup before grouting, the floor might stay put. My train of thought is that its not tile installed at a mall. floor traffic will be minimal, the mastic is advertised as being for wet locations above water.

should I pop the tiles and hardyboard, cut my losses and retile ? I'm also going to try the Laticrete stain resistant grout on 1/4 grout lines.

at the end of the project I'll have three 2 gallon buckets to put in my will

[RedRock]

the floor might stay put

How much are you willing to count on that "might"? And if your tiles start to pop up, are you ready to do it over?

I'd think in a kid's bathroom, they'll have water all over the floor after every bath, washing hands, and brushing teeth - my kids do this. And the mastic probably won't last long with that much water abuse - I'd give it a year or less.

My advice is to take it up, scrape off the mastic from the floors and tiles and use cement based thinset.

[cx]

Welcome, stifknee. Please give us a first name to use.

so here I am thinking that if I give the floor a couple of days to setup before grouting, the floor might stay put.

On a 12x12 tile, even over Hardibacker, a couple days ain't likely to provide dry mastic in the center.

A fella can toss the dice on something like that if he wants to. Come time to tear it up you'll likely hafta take up the Hardi, too, because you aren't likely to get the surface clean enough to properly set the tiles with thinset, anyway.

Might be able to take up the tile now, clean the Hardi adequately, and cut your losses as Juan suggests. Or maybe not.

Hardi, by the way, thinks you've installed their product correctly, as I recall. Don't agree with them, but it's their board, eh?

My opinion; worth price charged.

[BigCraig]

Heres what you you can expect using mastic, and this was in a relatively dry area