For this reason ceramic and porcelain tile floors can be considered somewhat delicate despite the inherent strength of the material.
Ceramic tile plywood subfloor installation.
The tcna spec shows this detail with the tile bonded directly to the plywood but few tile experts recommend doing this.
Tile floors are heavy and tile is a hard material.
When installing a ceramic tile floor on a concrete subfloor you don t have to worry about flexing as long as the concrete slab is at least 1 1 8 inch thick which most slabs are.
This guide will show you how to prepare your subfloor for a tile installation project to ensure that it s fit to support ceramic or porcelain tile.
Plywood or osb flakeboard can expand and contract at too high a rate to be a stable foundation for tile.
While you can lay tile directly over a concrete slab using thin set adhesive don t make the mistake of applying tile directly to a plywood subfloor.
This will cause either the tile itself to crack and even come loose or cause the grout to crack inside the joints.
A poor ceramic installation will delaminate from the subfloor split at the grout lines or worse crack directly across the tile.
The plywood will expand and contract at a different rate as the tile causing cracks to develop in the grout lines or tiles over time.
The safest most prudent course is to install tile on top of a cement backerboard such as durock wonderboard or hardiebacker.
If needed sand the plywood down to level the subfloor.
Backerboard does not shrink or expand when it comes into contact with water mortar and grout both contain water.
Cement backerboard is made for tiling.
Because of issues of moisture movement and adhesion ceramic tile will work well with certain types of subfloor underlayment systems and can go dramatically wrong with other subfloor materials.
Preparing a subfloor is an essential step for installing floor tile it provides a level surface that will allow the tiles to properly stay in place.
It will break or dislodge if the surface bends under the load.
To install ceramic tile over wood the wood surface must be structurally sound enough to support the weight of the tile.
Remember that you need a very flat surface to work on.
Laying tile on plywood.
Plywood substrate alternatives.
Tile installation standards are established by tcna the tile council of north america.
Installing ceramic floor tile to a plywood sub floor has unique challenges beyond that of installation on a concrete floor.
Concrete expands and contracts and that type of movement can also crack the tiles and the grout.
A plywood subfloor must be structurally sound and able to support the installation.
The detail shown is essentially tcna s f150 method with the addition of an uncoupling crack isolation membrane.
Installing over wood.
However you re not out of the woods.
