Tile over big joints?

[gotham]

Moved from New York City to Colorado and got my first garage. We're finishing up a reno on the house so garage is currently filled with contractor's stuff and after that will probably be filled with moving stuff but at some point soon it will be a garage.

I always thought I would diy porcelain tile but I have a list of project to get to and that is not near the top. I think my options are 1) do nothing, 2) pay for someone to lay tile, or 3) apply some kind of liquid product (epoxy, sealer, etc).

It's a three car garage. I'm taking one bay (to start) as a shop ( machining, welding, some beginning woodworking).

Can I tile over big troweled joints? House is 30 ish years old and floor looks pretty good.

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[DanEC]

There are really two options I see - set your tile joints over the construction joint and caulk the joint instead of grout - or, saw cut the tile as necessary to coincide with the construction joints if they are irregular in layout and caulk those joints. Porcelain tile is tough but pretty sure it will eventually crack over a construction joint like that. There is a mastic-like membrane that can be troweled down over tight cracks and sawed contraction joints in concrete slabs and allows enough elasticity to accommodate a bit of joint movement without usually reflective cracking the tile - but on a joint that wide and one that wire or reinforcement may or may not continue across, it probably would not deal with that.

 

[b-boy]

Would a product like Schluter Ditra work? It's not cheap, but I've used it and it's pretty solid stuff. I'm not sure how it would hold up to car traffic though.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Schluter-S...MIg47i9r3F3QIVD6tpCh2eXAc2EAQYASABEgJG9vD_BwE

 

[Dakota00]

Would a product like Schluter Ditra work?

No...

OP, do you have any strayed fine cracks that come off the main control joints?

 

[JoeMcGov]

Plain and simple: you honor the joint in the concrete floor in the hard finished flooring. So as mentioned above you create a joint in the tile at the concrete floor construction and/or control joints. You then SOFT seal them. Don't do this? The joint in the concrete floor will become an "oh oh" joint/crack in the tile. Honor the joint.

 

[Garage Flooring]

Moved from New York City to Colorado and got my first garage. We're finishing up a reno on the house so garage is currently filled with contractor's stuff and after that will probably be filled with moving stuff but at some point soon it will be a garage.

I always thought I would diy porcelain tile but I have a list of project to get to and that is not near the top. I think my options are 1) do nothing, 2) pay for someone to lay tile, or 3) apply some kind of liquid product (epoxy, sealer, etc).

It's a three car garage. I'm taking one bay (to start) as a shop ( machining, welding, some beginning woodworking).

Can I tile over big troweled joints? House is 30 ish years old and floor looks pretty good.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Where in Colorado?

 

[gotham]

No...

OP, do you have any strayed fine cracks that come off the main control joints?

It's pretty full in there at the moment. My impression was that the floor was in good shape. I'll do a better inspection with photos once the contractor is out.

Where in Colorado?

High Rockies. PM me if you want more specifics.

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[gotham]

Our inspector decided we needed to sheetrock the ceiling of the garage as a fire stop so I couldn't get great pictures. The good news is I didn't find any cracks. The outer bays don't have any extra joints. The middle bay has a bunch of joints that presumably channel water down to the central sump.

I'm leaning towards nothing or coating at the moment.

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[gotham]

I got all the dirt and dust out of one of the joints. It's obviously cracked in there but looks good to me. I'm going back and forth on coating vs tile vs nothing. Are there coatings that will stand up to studded snow tires?

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[SteveCh]

Pretty nice-looking concrete floor. I'd be tempted to leave it, maybe add some penetrating sealer and be done.

 

[gotham]

In case I go for tile, what's the procedure over a big joint like I have. I assume you need to fill it to support the tile but do you leave a gap or put something compressible in there?

 

[Dakota00]

My concern, is there any cracks in the grooves spanning off the corners of the drain?

 

[gotham]

Two of those angled joints have zero cracks. The other two have some cracks, not as big as the main transverse / longitudinal cracks.

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[DanEC]

The joints in the slab are doing what they are designed to do - control cracking in the slab. I would just mimic the joints in the concrete floor in the tile. You want a little wider joint in the tile over the tooled joints and seal them with caulking. The thin set mortar will provide some support to the edge of the tile at the joint just be sure the tile joint is directly over the concrete joint.

 

[gotham]

Anyone have porcelain tile in the garage and studded winter tires?

 

[Mr. D]

I have the same joints in my 3 car garage. Also looking to fill them before I grind my floor.