Tadelakt or Milestone Plaster Shower
yojimbo2
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Anyone made a shower with either of these or similar hydrophobic plasters?
Looking for info on this process, cost effectiveness compared to tiling a shower.
Replies
why start a new thread.... the old one was better
i went looking for the old thread and couldn't find it....
do you know where it is ?
... lot's of good stuff in that one Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
14528.17 Frankie
Flay your Suffolk bought-this-morning sole with organic hand-cracked pepper and blasted salt.
Thrill each side for four minutes at torchmark haut. Interrogate a lemon.
Embarrass any tough roots from the samphire. Then bamboozle till it's al dente with that certain je ne sais quoi.
Arabella Weir as Minty Marchmont - Posh Nosh
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=114528.17
thanks
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Edited 1/5/2009 9:52 am ET by MikeSmith
yo... i found this
http://www.stuccoitaliano.us/product_info.php?products_id=93
thks, looks like they are the US supplier.-sweet
I have done that one time. Tadelak is a combination of lime and clay. As I understand it the lime in combination with the finishing makes it somewhat resistant to water. It is used in bath houses in Marocco. But it is also used in making vessels, plates, cups... Anyway, what I can say is that it is incredibly labor intensive and in that way I don't think it is really an alternative to tile because I can't see how the two are comparable. Still, I liked doing it and was happy with how is came out and maybe if it were on a smaller surface I would attempt it again.
So this picture is not great and is not the shower but in the bathroom where the shower is.
Thanks for your reply, and the photo. I would like to get your thoughts on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvf2UGMnjuEThese guys make it look super easy. Is this possible?I did some research on Tadelakt, and what I came up with for a shower is this: Use Schluter Kerdi, then apply a 1/2" stucco base over the kerdi, then apply the tadelakt, and then seal the tadelakt.
Can you say petri dish? Ultimately, you'll have rely on sealers to ensure water tightness. Since the surface is less than smooth you'll need a brush to scrub away the dead skin, fecal matter, soap scum, etc. that gets deposited on the floors and walls every time someone showers. Then you can let the shower dry out for a few days and re-seal because the scrubbing wears the sealer out......... rinse, repeat.Had a client who wanted the same thing. A daily use shower with a teak floor and stucco type walls just like he'd seen in a hotel in Malaysia or someplace. I explained the sanitary issues, he insisted, I passed. Hopefully, he'll call for a re-do rather than just abandoning it when the mushrooms are ready to harvest.Glazed tile, copper, stainless steel, fiberglass, cultured stone, etc. are among your sanitary alternatives.Jim
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.- Fyodor Dostoyevski
Whether or not the product from the video is comparable to traditional tadelak I cannot say. I think what you get there is more form than substance. As I understand it making a truly watertight space that is durable is a highly skilled and specialized trade practiced by artisans in Morocco. I must say my attempt was only half successful. In reference to the video, it is not the beautifully smooth and accessible areas of a space that cause trouble it is the hooks and corners and niches and everything you would surely encounter in the real world.
Anyway, in short this was my experience. After putting on a layer about 15mm thick it then stood for around 2-3 hours until it had some body and could be rubbed out using some pressure with a block of wood. I wasn't trying for flatness necessarily and a flat surface in not critical. The only important thing for the subsurface is that it be uniform. Then at about 8 hours I began polishing and compressing it with a well polished river stone. The stone I found and is about half the size of my palm with a relatively flat area about the size of two quarters. I flattened and polished the stone itself further with a sharpening stone or something. Other shapes are useful for getting corners. I rubbed the surface intensely in about 10 square centimeter segments rubbing each 10 cm section until it resemble something like polished marble and then moved onto the next segment slightly overlapping keeping the stone constantly lubricated by dipping it in a cup with soap and olive oil. This is not just a finishing element but the lie of the soap and acid from the oil actually binds itself to the plaster and becomes an integral whole. There is then a particular sort of wax used for finishing. I would have to think some before saying exactly what this wax was.
I guess not surprisingly, the three walls of the shower I plastered did not perfectly seal and eventually let moisture penetrate causing some damage which in fact I consider a failure but in no part due to the nature of the product, just my lack of expertise.
It is an exceptional material and technique, but having done it I would also say it deserves a due amount of respect and consideration.Don
Edited 2/12/2009 1:18 pm by DonaldHWagstaff
Yeah, I love the look of the material, especially in a modern design setting. The previous post mentioned "petri dish", which I thought was very funny. Apparently they are using this material as countertops and floors as well-I am still leery of using this product.You mentioned that there was that moisture eventually penetrated and that there was damage. I would imagine using Kerdi, or other waterproofing membrane would avoid that issue. Nevertheless, I was researching this product as a faster, better way to do a shower, and it does not appear to be that way.