Got sucker punched by a daughter. Grand daughters invited us to come visit & watch them play HS volleyball. Daughter says “Oh, BTW, how ’bout helping me replace a tile floor in a downstairs bath?”
Already helped her lay an engineered wood floor in a family room, followed by a granite tile 4X4 inset at the door leading to their hot tub, followed by building a deck extension. Daughter is a mechanic/handy woman, capable of doing this stuff. Her husband is a great helper & flashlight holder who grimaces every time she comes up w/ another father/daughter project. (Especially the ones that include diagnosing problems in the front yard using a 5 gal bucket, a hose & a toilet.)
NOW FOR THE QUESTION: She wants granite, which is about 3/8 inch thick. Current tile is 4 inch hexagonal pieces less thick & less heavy. The floor is laid on I-Joists & has a plywood sub floor. It is continuous w/ the kitchen floor, which is done in 12 X12 porcelain tiles & has zero cracks in it after over 12 yrs, so must be adequate.
I envision laying a sheet of 1/4 inch hardy backer so I can use Thinset to lay the granite. Bath is a mere 78 X42 INCHES, so floor won’t be too heavy. Gonna use 4 inch square granites.
Will I have to reinforce the sub floor? How do I keep the new floor nearly level w/ the current , which obviously is not as thick?
Thanks, guys!
Don
The Glass Masterworks
“If it scratches, I etch it!”
Replies
First, untie the strings on your nail apron, then re-tie them on her husband. Second, kibitz from the sidelines.
To me, the porcelain floor is a permanent feature of the house...unless you're married to the woman. ;-)
HVC: You don't know my Daughter! She takes no prisoners! She can change the oil in her car faster than I can. She designed the deck we built & shepherded it through the local building dept w/ ZERO problems w/ the inspectors, using info she got out of BREAKTIME! She installed a three way switch system in her kitchen by talking to me over the phone. She can do wallboard & paint w/ the best DIYer. She wants a new bathroom floor, she gets it!
Son-in-Law is a poet & lover, not a mechanic. Also a pretty good financial weenie. Besides, everyone needs a good helper! He can mix concrete pretty well, is over 6 ft tall, so is really helpful when Daughter & I need help overhead. Great at holding a ladder when you are near the top. Can't drive a nail worth a shirt (but can sink wallboard screws), understands absolutely NOTHING about electricity, but is great at cleaning behind us. Runs through the family wiring up TV/stereo multi media systems. Been married to daughter over twenty yrs & gave up a long time ago at trying to muck around in things mechanical. He was a pretty darned good Airborne Engineer company commander & Army recruiter, having the best perfoming battalion in the country 23 out of the 24 months he was there. Great Dad to a pair of teen age daughters who are killer volleyball, soccer players & in academics.
Most important, when we are finished w/ something he says the magic words "Thanks, Dad!".
Don Don Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Hey Don,
As long as you're enjoying the time and energy spent...it's all good.
You gave me the impression, in your first post, that you'd been ambused by a family member(s) for the umpteenth time so I thought to back you up.
Honestly, I'd draw the line at breaking out a tile floor and putting in a new one. That's too much like work to do it as a favor.
HVC: No sweat! It's tough to be abused by a couple daughters that are pretty neat in their own right! In my family, the girls learned to do mechanical things & the boys learned to take care of themselves domestically. They reciprocate by coming to help me on my own projects. This daughter & helper husband came to GA & helped me erect the steel for our 36X 90 ft shop bldg. Also came & dragged granddaughters into hanging & mudding wallboard, then they just this summer came & we ground off the sealer on the concrete floor of our office space so we can paint it w/ an epoxy garage floor finish.
#2 granddaughter is pretty decent w/ a hammer & nailed on all the baseboard in my shop office. She's 14. She was born w/ a club foot & had it totally rebuilt Feb a yr ago. Now plays volleyball & soccer on it, plays drums in her school band, acts & excells academically. Played football & rugby when 12. Got the "Takes no prisoners" gene from her mother. #1 granddaughter got the "Holds the flashlight" gene from her father.
Found out this AM over breakfast that she listened to me in my lecture on hanging doors plumb.
#2 daughter is an ER Doc. In her spare time back in 2001 she wired the upstairs part of our house. Inspector said it was the neatest wiring job he'd seen. She had everything parallel, straight & not twisted together. Also labeled so you know where the wires go & what they do.
Got a real problem deciding out who to will my tool collection to - they all know how to use all of them. Daughters already own Bosch table & chop saws.
Only got one kid who went bad - became a tax lawyer. But he can do carpentry & plumbing repairs pretty well, lay tile & refinish floors. Also can knock a dove out of the sky w/ a 20 gage shotgun. When it comes to electrons, however, he's at a total loss & wisely lets someone who knows what they are doing take care of it.
BTW: I'm not going to remove the tile floor - Daughter will do that. I'm not stupid - just crazy. We do all have a ball working on these joint projects. MOF, DW usually gets me into them. Then she sits back & watches. Sorta a "Let's you & him fight" gene.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Don,
One caution, the subfloor usually needs to be beefed up to accommodate a natural stone versus a porcelain. Flex-wise, while granite is one of the stronger natural stones, it's still only about half as strong as porcelain. Cement board adds nothing in terms of structural strength. It's a transition (wood-to-tile) material only.
I usually try to incorporate an uncoupling membrane when using natural stone. It babies the stone a little more, so to speak, and can give better performance over the long haul. Especially over TJIs. TJIs, while strong, still flex. and due to their uniformity, they can reverberate.
Do you know what the kitchen floor is made up of thickness-wise? Is is a subfloor, then Cement board, then tile?
I usually use Ditra. In your case I'd strip the tile down to the subfloor and make sure it's secure to the joists. Then add 3/8" minimum, 1/2" preferred, underlayment, screwed to the subfloor (not to the joists) with the underlayment seams offset from the subfloor seams. Then Ditra over the underlayment, then granite over the Ditra.
Polished granite can be slippery, but I'm guessing this is not a wet barefoot bathroom?
If your floor heights are off we can mess around with the proposed structure a bit. Or you could use a transition saddled at the door threshold.
You could also simplify the structure by choosing a porcelain stone look-a-like. You'd get the look of natural stone (okay, most of the look) with the increased strength and minimal maintenance of a porcelain/ceramic. There are some very nice faux-stone tiles out there these days, though.
Mongo: Remember - this daughter "Takes no prisoners!" She has her mind set on granite. She will "strip" the old tile off. Get the potty & sink out then turn it over to me.
We have some thickness to play with. There is a marble door sill that has about half an inch to play with on the bath side. This is a first floor powder room type bath, floors don't get wet - unless someone suffers incontinence. Plan is to clear it out wall to wall. New lav will be on a leg supported cabinet w/ space under its body, so new tile will run wall to wall.
I have no illusions about the strength of cement board. Reda enough posts here top know that. Hadn't thought of Ditra. The Home of the Pot sells that.
Have never had access to underlayment in kitchen, so have no idea what's under there.
Since this job will be done, I'll just wait & see what I find after Daughter removes tile. Since this thing is so small, adding a sub floor addition shouldn't be a real problem, just a PITA. I went into the basement to see what kind of access we have to underside of floor. Not good. They way I see it, there are two TJI's running the length of the room, centered on the room width. Unfortunately, there are the lav drain & supply pipes running the length of the room. It should be no roblem to screw the sub floor additional thickness to it - what kind of schedule do I use for the screws? Does the Ditra replace the cement board? (FWIW - Andy convinced me to use Kerdi cloth in the shower for #2 daughter. So, I am a believer in these type products.)
I plan to cut my granite into 4 inch squares, since the room is so small. The 12 inch squares it comes in would overpower the small space. I have an MK tile saw & a big diamond surface grinder (From my glass work) so I can do smooth bevels on the corners to make it look like that's the way the tiles came from the mfgr.
What kind of mortar do I use? I'm thinking thinset, modified. Is there a better choice?
Thanks for helping me through this project.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Doesn't sound like you have much of a problem, sounds more like bragging rights and your proud of it. :~)
So far, I have one down and two to go. The oldest one caught on and when he was stationed in Iraq, he fixed everything. He got the nickname "Builder Bob".
I'll post more after the Red Sox game.
Don, Underlayment can be screwed to the subfloor at 6" spacing on the board edges and 8" oc in the field. In this application the Ditra will replace the cement board, so no cement board needed.The Ditra can be applied over the ply underlayment with a modified thinset. The granite can be applied over the Ditra, Schluter calls for using an unmodified thinset, but with 4" squares you could use a lightly modfied. You mentioned Home Depot (I think it was you), they carry Custom Brand thinsets. Unmodified would be MasterBlend. A lightly modified would be VersaBond. Their highly modified is FlexBond.With Ditra, I use the flat edge of a trowel to first fill the cavities with thinset. Then I apply more and use the notched side to comb it out, then tile over the combed thinset.When I did that Kerdi Shower pictorial thread years ago, I did the same thing, I cut 12" tiles into 4" squares to set them over Kerdi. When tiling floors I do recommend gridding the floor and tiling off the grids instead of using spacers. Especially if the tile is not rectified, which yours won't be.
How'd the good old Sox do?
"When tiling floors I do recommend gridding the floor and tiling off the grids instead of using spacers. Especially if the tile is not rectified, which yours won't be."
Mongo - what's "Rectified"? also - 'splain "Gridding." Think I know. but not sure.
A bit of on line reading at the Schluter site & I'll be ready to go!
Thanks.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Sox swept the doubleheader, took two from Tampa. A couple of good games, 3-1 and 4-0.
Most tile sizes are cut/stamped out of large sheets soft clay then dried and fired. During the drying and firing process they can shrink unevenly, the final product you can get in the store might not be perfectly uniform in size. Maybe slightly out of diagonal, or slightly off by a 16th of an inch here and an 8th of an inch there. They can also warp slightly, like a pringles potato chip.
The variations are slight, but if you try to lay these tiles with minimal grout joints you might end up driving yourself nuts. Any warpage can result in lippage (the edge or corner of one tile being higher than its neighbor) that just can't be eliminated due to the tile being out of flat. If you use tile spacers to set the grout gaps of these tiles, the spacers can kick the grout line alignment off as you work your way across the floor due to the uneven tile dimensions.
That's why with most "standard" 12" square tiles, it's best to shoot for a minimum grout joint of 3/16ths inch wide, most recommend 1/4" wide grout joints. With variations in the tile, in some areas the grout joints will be a little smaller, in other areas slightly larger. Lippage can be disguised by the wider grout joint.
Rectified tiles are fired in large sheets and then sawn to size after firing. The end result is tiles that are perfectly uniform in size and perfectly flat, too. They can be set with a minimal grout joint, 1/16" minimum, with 1/8" being most common.
"Gridding a floor" is drawing grid marks on the floor and using the grid marks to align the tiles instead of tile spacers. Example, in the photo below let's say the tiles are 4" squares and the grout lines 1/4" wide. I struck grid lines 3 tiles (4" x 3 tiles = 12") plus 3 grout lines (1/4" x 3 lines = 3/4") for a total of 12-3/4" across the floor.
I then use these grid lines to align my tiles instead of tile spacers.
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View ImageSince your using granite, which is a sawn stone, the individual tiles should be uniform in size. It can depend on the source though. To check, take 20 tiles, stack them, then set them on edge like a deck of cards on edge. Any variations in dimension will be easy to discover by running your hand over the tile edges.
I lifted these photos off the Kerdi shower thread I did a couple of years ago, this link should take you to the middle of the thread showing the gridding/tiling process.
Hope this helps, Don. And go Red Sox!
Go Braves! Note I said that after getting the info from you! We are Atlantans. Well, almost; live about 65 miles from downtown. Have a classmate who ran for the position of head rabble rouser for the Sox two yrs ago - he even made the top 25 & I think finished quite well - for someone who didn't live in Boston. Name is Hank Larsen.
Mongo, I'd never have figured out what rectified meant in a thousand yrs of guessing. Now I know. I've laid non-rectified tile on a back splash in a kitchen years ago. You are right - drove me nuts till I essentially gridded the wall & worked from that.
Nice part about cutting them 4" on my tile saw is that they all wind up pretty darned close to 4", since you are cutting them to a dimension rather than in thirds of the square.
When we did our house, I hired a real tile setter to do the job. I laid out the bathroom dimensions on the floor of my shop & cut the tiles so the pattern fit exactly in the space available. Then I beveled the corners on my 24" diamond plate grinder so all the shop cut edges looked & felt like the factory cut edges to your bare feet. Some of the tiles had to be cut to rather wierd sizes. I had one field inside a border that required about 60 tiles cut to 5.37" square so that I wouldn't have any different sized pieces in the field. The end result looks good.
Waste was sizeable from the off cuts, but we got the tile free from the big "Coverings" show in Orlando from a display that was to be destroyed in the teardown. All we had to do was take it up. Spent the entire night doing it - but our time was cheaper than the money we had available to spend on the job. Wound up buying three pieces of tile for the bathroom. That defined "Sweat equity." Well, actually "Sleep equity."
Thanks, Mongo. Let you know how it comes out.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Hey, it's okay to root for the Braves, after all they used to be the Boston Braves.
Trivia to stump your friends: The Braves are the only team to win the World Series in three different cities; Boston Braves in 1914, Milwaukee Braves in 1957, and Atlanta Braves in 1995.
We, in Etlanner, feel about the NY Yankees about the same as you. Boston is just a historical rivalry. NY, both the Yankees & Mets are mortal enemies, slightly above Satan, himself. The Phillies don't rank very far behind.
Been a bad yr for Etlanner fans. They just can't seem to put it all together on the same day.
'Bout to get the day started - off into the attic to muck around w/ wiring to install a ceiling fan. Bathroom comes on the next visit in Nov. Nothing quite as much fun as rolling around in fiber glass.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Is this your buddy Hank?
View Image
Yeah - that's him, in all his glory!
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Hank corrupted as many people as my wife did in creating Braves fans! She got addicted to the Braves while I was away on a contract job returning ammo from Saudi Arabia after Gulf War I. Came home & found her hopelessly addicted. Now we are traveling cross country & I'm expected to find the Braves on radio in the middle of Cards country.
We both started out in the Artillery. Didn't finish that way, however. But at least we were able to finish.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
For the first decade of my framing career, we used to "drop" the floors where tile landed. That meant that we installed ledgers on each side of the joist and fastened 14 1/4" strips of plywood to them. The finished subfloor was flush with the tops of the joist. This was done because the substrate was always 3/4" of drypack (paper, mesh and mud) and the builders wanted the tile floors flush with the adjoining floors.
This is one of your options. It's not as hard as you think in a small room like that. 3/4" of drypack will give you a very substantial substrate. In your case, the bigger challenge would be installing a proper ledger to carry the "dropped" subfloor. Obviously, this was very easy with sawn lumber.
Jim: Did our own house like that back in 2000. Dropped the height of the floor trusses enough to allow the drypack to be on top of the Advantech sub floor. Tile - porcelain in our case - came out flush w/ wood floors in adjacent areas. My father did that back in 1950 to our house in Miami, FLA. I really liked the solution. Doesn't seem to be as simple to do w/ TJI's, however.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Tjis are much tougher. Since it's only a small area, I'd probably laminate each side of the tji with plywood. I'd keep the top edge down 3/4" on each ply. I'd then lay the subfloor inbetween each TJI.
I've had to retro-drop an entire kitchen. I systematically cut the existing subfloor into 14 1/4" strips and re-installed as I mae my way across the kitchen. It really wasn't that hard. I'd probably get that bathroom done in half a day.
Consider laying your granite 'running bond' instead of in a grid. Looks especially good with natural stone.
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Jeff
Jeff: Daughter told me last night she wants some sort of design in floor. That's easy to afford when you are paying less than ten cents an hour for the labor <G>. She's gonna design it before we visit again. This is gonna be rich, I can tell you.
I did that to a 4X4 pad inside her back door leading to their deck & hot tub area. Guess she liked it. Used black granite in three different patterns for that. I'm prejudiced, but I think it looks pretty neat. It was a true PITA to lay. The concrete floor was neither flat nor level. The finished product was, however.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"