First Home - Renovation Project
- Thread starter Brozart
- Start date
looking good.
its not a thing I have ever attempted but then Ive got a good mate that does flooring for a living and Ive seen him do stuff like this and hes good at what he does.
We are planning on redoing our kitchen later in the year and I think this will be one of the jobs needing done. but as said.. Ill get my mate Jim in to do it.
its not a thing I have ever attempted but then Ive got a good mate that does flooring for a living and Ive seen him do stuff like this and hes good at what he does.
We are planning on redoing our kitchen later in the year and I think this will be one of the jobs needing done. but as said.. Ill get my mate Jim in to do it.
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Just finished thread, epic story 
glad you bought hicvision, about to buy myself
glad you bought hicvision, about to buy myself 
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Wow what an epic build! Get moved in soon though man!!
Nice work on the leveling, well rated stuff.
Ive nearly finished my kitchen (13sqm) I used a bag to raise a really low spot before 30mm marmox went down and E UFH in the adhesive (i didnt want to pay another £120 on SLC). Much slower than just using SLC to cover it but i was worried about adding too much height.
How much did you raise the floor? I think E UFH would have been nice just to take cold off the floor. My 200W/m warmup, only 3mm wires, takes 7 mins to feel warm underfoot, probably due to the overkill insulation.
Obviously budget is a limiting factor though!
Ive nearly finished my kitchen (13sqm) I used a bag to raise a really low spot before 30mm marmox went down and E UFH in the adhesive (i didnt want to pay another £120 on SLC). Much slower than just using SLC to cover it but i was worried about adding too much height.
How much did you raise the floor? I think E UFH would have been nice just to take cold off the floor. My 200W/m warmup, only 3mm wires, takes 7 mins to feel warm underfoot, probably due to the overkill insulation.
Obviously budget is a limiting factor though!
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Amazing build, will be epic once complete I'm sure. Bet you can't wait to move in
Just finished thread, epic story
Thanks all! Yeah very eager to sort it out and move in now
I've raised it 30mm and it needs another layer to be perfect.
Which system did you go with and how much £££? I've only got around 15mm to play with, probably too late to consider now
http://www.centralheat.co.uk/warmup-2wpfm0-5-mat-underfloor-heating-kit-0-5m2-6874.html
I did all the floor not under units. It's only 2mm. Not 3mm
This with a £20 thermostat of Amazon.
Marmox was £200 ish. I'm not sure if you have room for insulation boards now.
I did all the floor not under units. It's only 2mm. Not 3mm
This with a £20 thermostat of Amazon.
Marmox was £200 ish. I'm not sure if you have room for insulation boards now.
Despite my last pour, I was still out quite a bit out the centre - as we've gone for large format plank tiles I needed to floor to be as flat as possible and wouldn't risk building it up with adhesive (more on this later).
Started pouring from the centre of the room and worked my way out.
I ran out of compound just before I got to the end!
Used a small bag of Cempolay by Bostik to finish off, it's only a 10KG bag and can be trowelled to feather edge (0-5mm) - This stuff was lovely to work with and ideal to patch the top where I ran out
Perfect now
Started pouring from the centre of the room and worked my way out.
I ran out of compound just before I got to the end!
Used a small bag of Cempolay by Bostik to finish off, it's only a 10KG bag and can be trowelled to feather edge (0-5mm) - This stuff was lovely to work with and ideal to patch the top where I ran out
Perfect now
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Good work, wish the guy who did my flooring was not a moron, I can touch the ceiling at one end of the kitchen but not the other :\
I also never want to remove lath and plaster again in my life, grim job.
I also never want to remove lath and plaster again in my life, grim job.
From my experience, prevention is the best cure when it comes to trapped air bubbles - keeping the drill paddle immersed and not whisking too rapidly prevents air from driving into the mix. You'll know if you made this error as you'll get 100s of tiny bumbles rise to the top whilst you wait for it to 'slacken'. I didn't bother using a spiked roller because the floor was out in large areas, I thought the roller would have just followed the curve and spread the compound out instead of filling it.
LOL! Still better than what mine would have done if I allowed him to continue...
So we decided to go for large format plank tiles in multiple colours, an ideal choice for beginners no doubt 
Lippage Advice
We went with 15x90cm Multi Wood effect tiled by Yurtbay. They are lovely quality but as with all large format plank tiles they suffer from warpage and bow in the middle, you can see this by turning one upside down and rocking it slightly each end. This is where floor flatness is really important and all my leveling pays off, tile manufacturers say the floor must have a maximum allowable variation of 1/8″ in 10ft for LFTs - which basically means it must be flat. From personal experience I know the tiles were hard enough to lay without worrying about the subfloor too. To counter lippage further we went with a third off-set pattern which really complimented the design, if you go past 33% offset your dipped edge will be too close to the bow in the middle.
Dry Run
I started by squaring up the room with a large folding square and laser, this give me a line to work off and will help me when it comes to fitting the kitchen as I want the tile rows and kitchen to be symmetric. From there we laid out the tiles, played with colour variations and got most of the cuts out the way using a cheap wet tile cutter. As sad as it sounds I think getting the colour combinations right was the hardest part
Some of the designs - we laid them out like a colour pallet:
Once we finally finished the layout, all the tiles were labelled and stacked in rows. This was a late shift...
Lippage Advice
We went with 15x90cm Multi Wood effect tiled by Yurtbay. They are lovely quality but as with all large format plank tiles they suffer from warpage and bow in the middle, you can see this by turning one upside down and rocking it slightly each end. This is where floor flatness is really important and all my leveling pays off, tile manufacturers say the floor must have a maximum allowable variation of 1/8″ in 10ft for LFTs - which basically means it must be flat. From personal experience I know the tiles were hard enough to lay without worrying about the subfloor too. To counter lippage further we went with a third off-set pattern which really complimented the design, if you go past 33% offset your dipped edge will be too close to the bow in the middle.
Dry Run
I started by squaring up the room with a large folding square and laser, this give me a line to work off and will help me when it comes to fitting the kitchen as I want the tile rows and kitchen to be symmetric. From there we laid out the tiles, played with colour variations and got most of the cuts out the way using a cheap wet tile cutter. As sad as it sounds I think getting the colour combinations right was the hardest part
Some of the designs - we laid them out like a colour pallet:
Once we finally finished the layout, all the tiles were labelled and stacked in rows. This was a late shift...
Finally, updates!
I'm not totally sold on the floor either, but given your track record on the renovation as a whole I'm willing to bet the end result will be worth it.
What is bugging me about it is that I can't unsee the various optical effects of the different styles of tile - it looks really uneven in places where certain colours/patterns meet. Of the eight styles, there looks to be three distinct groupings that would work but the eight as a whole just don't seem to sit right.
Curiouser and curiouser...
I'm not totally sold on the floor either, but given your track record on the renovation as a whole I'm willing to bet the end result will be worth it.
What is bugging me about it is that I can't unsee the various optical effects of the different styles of tile - it looks really uneven in places where certain colours/patterns meet. Of the eight styles, there looks to be three distinct groupings that would work but the eight as a whole just don't seem to sit right.
Curiouser and curiouser...
Not as much as I hated laying it haha, but yeah it's very much a hate it or love it design.
I hope so, the kitchen should tone them down once installed...
The colours/patterns have been the hardest part to get right - we really had to cherry pick through all the packs to get the right balance. I wouldn't say any look uneven in real life, although it could just be my tiling?
I started off using UltraTile Proflex SP adhesive with a 10mm notch trowel and back buttered each tile - this method does use more adhesive but it ensures maximum coverage and no hollow spots. The only issue I had was I ordered rapidset which only has a two hour pot live and the anti-slump property was quite harsh to the point I struggled collapsing the ridges - maybe a 20mm round trowel would have helped but I really weren't fussed on the product. It is advised to lay two rows and allow it to set for half hour, this will create a foundation to work from and prevented the tiles moving away from the line when I continued pushing new tiles up to them.
I was happy with my first attempt at tiling but I hated the rapid-set adhesive and reached out to Mapei technical for advice again
I was looking for a slow-set adhesive that supported large format tiles, they introduced me to Keraflex Maxi S1 - such a good product, really nice to work with, 8 hour pot life and overall ideal for my needs.
The 8 hour pot life give me plenty of time to work with any lippage issues or cuts without rushing, it's also worth noting that I ran the ridges against the tiles to make it easier to collapse them.
I marked out the rows to minimise mess, it's surprisingly easy to miss judge the sizes when spreading the adhesive.
Tools of the trade:
The step
The floor by the step was slightly uneven as I never leveled that far up.
I tapered a small piece using the wet cutter and it actually worked:
Perfectly level
Then grinded the step face down in preparation as it wasn't flat - this is now ready for when I start tiling the step + utility room.
Finished kitchen (pre-grout)
I was happy with my first attempt at tiling but I hated the rapid-set adhesive and reached out to Mapei technical for advice again
I was looking for a slow-set adhesive that supported large format tiles, they introduced me to Keraflex Maxi S1 - such a good product, really nice to work with, 8 hour pot life and overall ideal for my needs.The 8 hour pot life give me plenty of time to work with any lippage issues or cuts without rushing, it's also worth noting that I ran the ridges against the tiles to make it easier to collapse them.
I marked out the rows to minimise mess, it's surprisingly easy to miss judge the sizes when spreading the adhesive.
Tools of the trade:
The step
The floor by the step was slightly uneven as I never leveled that far up.
I tapered a small piece using the wet cutter and it actually worked:
Perfectly level
Then grinded the step face down in preparation as it wasn't flat - this is now ready for when I start tiling the step + utility room.
Finished kitchen (pre-grout)
