The five year bathroom redo

[Tulla]

Before I spend another two hours composing my first thread, please let me know this is not going to disappear when I push the submit button. If I'm registered and this site opened up to me I don't understand what happened.Thanks. Tippi

[sandbagger]

welcome, Tippi

sorry to hear of you problems. One trick I've learned - the hard way - is that it's sometimes best to do your longer posts in a text editor and work offline until you get it right. Copy and paste into the comment box and you're good to go. If something happens you still have the original.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Welcome to the forum, Tippi.

About the only thing that will disappear on your first few posts is an url. It's an anti spam thing, but after you've made a few posts, you can post them all you like.

[Tulla]

Thanks Art and Bubba. I’ve been out shopping so now I am refreshed and will start again. I think it was a sign from God that the question was too long, so for the moment I will shorten it to one question and copy and paste it from my Word file. First of all, in my previous disappearing entry I noted that I found this site a couple of weeks ago and have answered many questions from reading the threads. It is a great site and now that I know to either make a print of my entry or copy and paste it I will appreciate it even more.

I have finally gotten to the tile portion of my bathroom reno. My tiles are the Rialto porcelain tiles from Lowes. Thank God they keep carrying them and they haven’t been discontinued and the color is pretty consistent. I am using the white Flex bond thinset from Home Depot over Durock taped and skimmed. For grout I looked at possibly using the Spectra Lock Pro or Star Quartz however, it looks like grouting the ceiling would be very problematic with those types of grout and I would have to order the Pro on line and the Star Quartz doesn’t appear to be very quality consistent. So now I am looking at the Laticrete 1500 with the liquid additive (from Lowes) or the Polyblend (Home Depot) which just adds water. I like the colors of the Polyblend better but I like the admix of the Laticrete. I also notice that I could use the epoxy additive of the Polyblend on the floor and probably get the same color. Does anyone have any comments on these or a good suggestion on what I should use, when I get to the point where I’m grouting? I am actually about ready to grout the ceiling hopefully by next week. I’m starting at the top (with some scaffolding to protect my tub). As you can probably tell by my “5 year project” I don’t put in long, hard days at this. Thanks for your encouragement and comments.

Tippi

[John Bridge]

Welcome aboard, Tippi.

Both Laticrete and Custom make good grouts. Custom tells you not to add anything but water to Polyblend. Laticrete has sever different grout systems. I think you should follow directions. I know that sounds lame, but that's pretty much it.

I use a lot of Polyblend on the showers I build. Been using it for years.

P.S. Long posts I copy to the clipboard before hitting the launch button. I do the same with lengthy emails. I've been burned there, too.

[ceramictec]

Hi Tippi,

I think it was a sign from God that the question was too long

sometimes the long posts get us confused.
most of us do tile all the time so it's like a post overload.
short questions get better detailed results.

Spectra Lock is great walls, floors..might be a little tough on the ceiling
for a diy'er but can be done.

I myself just used the StarQuartz for the first time on a large commercial bathroom job. easy to work with and easy to clean, from there I cant say much on the durability of it and only read some stories about it not holding up in a shower. I'm sure that has been fixed with the quick dry powder additive.

the 100% epoxy Custom makes that you add to a bag of Polyblend grout to
is a little tough for a non pro.

you might want to check out the Laticrete Permacolor grout over the 1500

[cx]

Welcome, Tippi.

Originally Posted by ceramictec

sometimes the long posts get us confused.

Sometimes the short posts do too.

[Tulla]

Question 2
Thanks for the input on the grout. It appears that if I follow the directions on whatever I use it should turn out OK. I will check out all of your recommendations.

Another question I have is support for the joists. Our ranch house is on a crawl space and at the moment I have a hole in the floor of the bathroom which makes it very handy except for the day I fell in (some lessons are learned the hard way and I now keep a board screwed in over the hole unless I need to be down there). However, I don’t think I can get long joists through that hole. Love that Deflecto calculator and my joists qualify for ceramic tile, not stone. However, on three of the 13.5 foot joists rest a bathtub (only about 100 lbs.) with a pour of one bag of cement underneath to keep it from becoming a water slide, and eventually a total tub surround of Durock and porcelain tile (they seem a lot heavier than ceramic to me); a closet (probably not a serious weight issue, a floor to ceiling bookshelf full of a small portion of my husband’s “liberry”, and then the hallway. Seems like a lot of weight to me on the three 2x10’s that span the 13.5 feet so I’m thinking we need to dig some shallow footings (never freezes in the crawl space) and put up a jack system of some kind to help support those three joists before I add all of the tile. The jack system would probably have to be under the bookshelves at about 4 feet in from the end of the joists or at the tub past the plumbing about 8 feet from the end of the joists. Do you think we will we create problems with a jack system? Most of the threads seem to do sister joists and I don’t think I’ve found one using jacks.

[cx]

You'll need to give some of us more hints about the actual structure you're dealing with there if we're to help evaluate the floor beyond the designed deflection calculation. Not sure why we're adding support for the joist structure in one four-foot area. Not that I'm ever opposed to more support for a floor structure, mind you.

I do know that calculating the weight of a bathtub at 100 pounds isn't gonna help you much in your design work, though. Them things have a tendency to get a lot heavier when they're filled with water and bodies, eh?

Bookcases? Yeah, can get heavy. But you gotta provide a realistic estimate of how heavy and what sorta footprint it has before you can worry effective. And you don't wanna waste a good worry, right?

Neither of those elements is usually much of a concern if your joist structure meets reasonable residential construction criteria, but it's good to consider them as you have.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[Tulla]

Well here it is almost Thanksgiving and I have been giving this project considerable time and planning since my last post and that has been going OK. I have been using my handy dandy little Plasplug electric wet saw to cut the 4-inch ceiling tiles and the trim pieces. This went very well and they are all secured in place and look good. However, today was HORRIBLE! My first wet saw tile rental session was today so I laid out and marked 30 pieces of tile yesterday (some with two or three cuts) These are 12-inch white Rialto tiles from Lowes (they still sell them although I have had these stored under a bed for quite a while). I purchased a brand new highly recommended porcelain diamond Master Wholesalers 10-inch wet saw blade since I was not sure what I would get with the rental saw. I rented a Felker Tile Master and started with the Felker blade that came with it. The first piece was OK but the second and third piece cracked at inappropriate places so I put my new blade in. The first piece was great and it did “cut like butter”. However, it seems that my tile has some “hidden” pieces of what looks to me like flat shavings of brick red metal that binds the saw blade and shatters the edge of the tile usually on one side worse than the other. These are totally invisible from the front or back of the tile. I think the blade is melting it into little brick red balls along with the shards. So I have plowed through and made many cuts and “sharpened” my blade numerous times which helps slightly. I fear my blade is biting the dust and I was hoping that it would make it through this project. I still have one sheet of tile that I would like to cut before I return the saw but I have already ruined three tiles trying to cut it. Does anyone else have experience with this tile or know what on earth is going on? Does cheap tile equal replacing blades?? I’m dreading my next session of cutting tiles to finish the bottom half of the tub. Sorry this is so long. Thanks for any aid or comfort you can extend. Tippi

[Tulla]

It seems that my tile has some “hidden” pieces of what looks to me like flat shavings of brick red metal that binds the saw blade and shatters the edge of the tile usually on one side worse than the other. The blade races to pull the tile through and then binds up. I have to hold on tight to the tile and tray. I think the blade is melting it into little brick red balls along with the shards. These are not visible from either the front or the back of the tile. Do I have flawed tile? These are about five years old (stored in the house under the bed) and Lowes still carries these tiles. Lowes tells me they are very popular tiles so someone else must have had this problem. More detailed information is in my previous lengthy post! Thanks for any input. Tippi

[bbcamp]

There should not be anything in a porcelain tile to melt into brick red balls. Are you sure the blade is not overheating and failing? Closeup pics may be helpfull.

[Tulla]

I hope you are right about the overheating. When I took the tile saw back this morning I did tell them that I thought the water was not hitting the blade on the one side and in my mind I was blaming the chipping on that. There was water coming out of the hose on that side but it did not seem to be hitting the blade and when I felt that side of the blade it seemed dry. When I cut my last pieces this morning, I kept handing water onto that side and things did seem to go better. I have never put photos on this site before—I will see if I can figure out how to do that. I’m also going to hammer a piece of this tile and see if it is into the tile or not. Thanks so much for the suggestion. Tippi

[Tulla]

I rented the tile saw again and made sure the water was always hitting the blade. The water delivery system on the Felker saw left something to be desired but with vigilance, the session went much better than last time. I am now ready to apply porcelain tile next to the tile flange of the tub. I applied silicone caulk between the durock and the tile flange when I put on the durock; but I can see that I will have the tiles hanging over the durock by about 3/8”. I am wondering if I should try to fill the space between the tiles that do not have backing with the silicone caulk when I do the 1/8” space between the tub and tiles, or if I should try to fill these spaces with grout, or if I should use some sort of backer material to fill the open space between the durock and the tub. Please let me know specifically what kind of backer material I should use if that is what I should do. Thanks for your help.

[bbcamp]

That little bit of overhang is nothing to worry about. You won't be walking there. When you grout, just keep packing grout into those vertical joints until they won't take any more. When the grout dries, clean out the tile to tub joint and caulk it.