Thinking of ceramic tile?

[mrgooch]

Thinking of porceline tile?

I am thinking of having my garage tiled by a professional. My question has to do with dealing with the painted floor.
One side is in very good shape but the other side where the car is parked is not. This is because it was covered with a rubber mat for a couple of years and water eventually seeped under causing some paint to peel.
Do you know if the floor needs to be prepped before it can be tiled?
I will be cleaning it and hand scraping most of the paint edges.I am not willing to go for extra expenses of preparing it if necessary.

 

[mrgooch]

Here is a photo taken before any cleaning.

 

[James-W]

I know very little about laying tile but I would tend to think trying to tile over paint would be a bad idea. I would think you would want bare concrete that is clean and does not have oil or other petroleum products soaked into the floor. But not being a tile laying person I cannot say that for certain.

 

[Spdstr280Z]

I'm no expert either, but I would remove the paint too.

On a completely different topic... How do you like the Maxima ?

Jason

 

[Shiftless]

You have to remove the paint if you expect the thinset to bond to the floor. And I don't mean liquid paint stripper either. Liquid stripper might leave a clean looking surface but traces of the paint fill in the tiny pores of the concrete which effectively seals the surface. BAD for adhering thinset.
I'm afraid you won't like my advise but it is the best way to make sure your new tile sticks tight. You have to mechanically remove that paint. Grinding will be dusty...wear a respirator.

You might consider a race deck type product which I understand can be laid over paint with no problems.

 

[Angelfire]

I'd remove the paint. The key to keeping the tile from cracking under load/impact is that is fully bonded to the substrate (ie. 100% coverage of thinset)....if you have parts of that floor that are loose or become loose (ie. paint), you run the risk of breakage or tiles coming loose. I wouldn't think it would take much to run a grinder over it as it appears the paint is already in failure mode. Regarding the tile, ceramic works (Jack Olsen has a number of pics/videos/threads on here with it) but porcelain will give you a harder floor.
Cheers.

 

[mrgooch]

Re: Thinking of porceline tile?

Well gentleman I kind of suspected the worst as far as what is needed to prep the floor. I am way past doing any of the work myself as I am 74 years old and my back and knees are a little older. Considering the cost of the tile job alone would be expensive I won't consider the additional cost of having someone do the grinding.

 

[mrgooch]

Re: Thinking of porceline tile?

I'm no expert either, but I would remove the paint too.


On a completely different topic... How do you like the Maxima ?

Jason

I have had the Maxima SL since July and really like it. I had one in 2010 which also was great.

 

[mrgooch]

I thought I would add that the reason I made the worst choice in painting the floor years ago was that I moved and it was the first garage that I ever had. Having no experience and not asking for advise led me to a bad decision.

 

[bdamico]

So here's the deal. Experts will tell you to remove the paint and that is the correct answer but there are those here who have had tile down successfully on a painted surface.

 

[James-W]

Re: Thinking of porceline tile?

Well gentleman I kind of suspected the worst as far as what is needed to prep the floor. I am way past doing any of the work myself as I am 74 years old and my back and knees are a little older. Considering the cost of the tile job alone would be expensive I won't consider the additional cost of having someone do the grinding.

Have you considered a plastic type flooring, like Racedeck, or one of the other types that many people are using these days?

 

[mrgooch]

I have reviewed it recently and my concern would be
1: water getting under the flooring [ anything with seems or sections ]
2: movement [ shifting ] from car movement.

Does Racedeck need floor prep?

 

[James-W]

I have reviewed it recently and my concern would be
1: water getting under the flooring [ anything with seems or sections ]
2: movement [ shifting ] from car movement.

Does Racedeck need floor prep?

I have Racedeck in my garage, it's been close to a year now, and I really like it. It looks good and the floor is warmer in the Winter than the cold concrete was. Plus, it is easier to walk on and easier to lay down on, although I seldom lay on the garage floor to work on the cars these days.

To answer your questions, water does not get under the tiles unless it sits there for awhile. I just clean up any spills right away and I have no problems with water under the tiles. But even if you do get water under the tiles, it will run toward a drain if the floor is sloped towards it, or toward the overhead door if the floor is sloped that way.

As to the tiles moving, that just doesn't happen, at least in my garage it doesn't. My garage is 24X36 so I have 864 tiles on the floor. The shipping weight was close to 900 pounds. With that much weight on the floor spread over a large area, the tiles just don't move at all, with one exception. I have a row of black tiles on the outside of the flooring, which it turns out is not a very smart idea on my part. This means I have a row of black tiles where the overhead door is and my overhead door faces east. When the door is open during the Summer months, the sun beats down on the black tiles and they expand a bit more than the other tiles causing the floor to buckle slightly right by the door. It isn't a real big deal, I normally leave the door closed on hot days and turn on the garage air conditioning. I just wanted to you to be aware of this so if you do decide to go with Racedeck flooring you don't make the same mistake I did and put a row of black tiles right by the overhead door where the sun can beat down on them.

As far as floor prep, yes there is some preparation, but it is VERY MINOR. All you need do is sweep the floor to get rid of the chunks, then vacuum the floor with a shop vac. That's it, the floor prep is now finished. Just lay out the floor to get started and once you get the initial few tiles started, it goes pretty darn quick. Since you have "bad knees" I would suggest you get some help putting them down, but that help can be anyone from the age of about 14 and up. Laying the tiles is simple and straight forward, anyone can put the tiles down, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the job. You will be done in a few hours at most and the floor will look great. In fact, you will wonder why you didn't do this a long time ago.

 

[mrgooch]

I have a question about water drainage to the front of the garage doors and out. The front leading row of tiles needs the edge that they sell. That edge fits and seals that front edge preventing a normal flow or drainage to occur. Have you noticed this?
My question about water getting under has to do with normal snow and rain water coming off the car as it sits and accumulates.

 

[James-W]

I have a question about water drainage to the front of the garage doors and out. The front leading row of tiles needs the edge that they sell. That edge fits and seals that front edge preventing a normal flow or drainage to occur. Have you noticed this?
My question about water getting under has to do with normal snow and rain water coming off the car as it sits and accumulates.

If you have the "FreeFlow" tiles, which many people do, I don't think that is a problem. Also, the edge tiles you are speaking of are more of a "ramp" than a seal, they allow you to drive up on the floor tiles without screwing up the edge of the tiles.

I imagine the RaceDeck people can answer those types of questions better than I can and I am pretty sure someone from RaceDeck will be along here soon and give you a definitive answer.

The thing is, in my case, I use my garage for a workshop rather than for a place to park our cars. As a consequence I don't get hardly any water on the floor at all, except when I mop the floor, and I don't get all that much excess water on the floor when I do that either. So I don't really have a "water on the floor" issue and because of that I don't have first hand knowledge of any problems it may or may not cause.

 

[mrgooch]

The edge tiles although they provide a nice entry onto the tiles[ and surly needed ] definitely seal off the front edge and would prevent a natural flow of water.

 

[James-W]

It isn't like a rubber seal, it is just plastic and I doubt it would stop the water from running out. But I am not in a very good position to answer that question since I don't have water on my garage floor that needs to run off and escape. I would have thought someone from RaceDeck (or another flooring company) would have been on the forum by now and answered the question for you.

Anyway, I am just trying to offer you another option to consider, one that would be easy to install, would not require a lot of prep work, and would look really nice when finished.