Tiling concrete floor

[Bryce]

Im going to be tiling my garage floor and Im looking for advice on what I'll need. I intend on doing all the work myself.

The floor is currently smooth concrete but with a few chips out of it. Nothing deeper than 10mm I'd say. Do I need to worry about filling these chips or should the adhesive sort that out for me?

Preparation wise, what should I use? Ive seen a mix of water and pva used in the past after obviously given the floor a good clean.

I'll be using ceramic tiles as there seems to be a wider range of choice and they are half the price. However I'll consider porcelain if strongly advised. What do I want to stick these down with and what depth of bed should they be on?

Please feel free to add anything else worth noting.

Thanks

Im in Scotland by the way.

 

[duneslider]

It would be a book to fully answer all your questions.

You want the floor as flat as possible before you lay tile.

Porcelain is better, especially if it gets cold and wet where you are. However, a good quality ceramic maybe good enough.

Thinset is what you want to use to set the tile. Not 100% sure what brands are readily available on your side of the pond. Most of your products are very different even if they have the same manufacturer.

You will want to clean the floor well, a good acid wash. If the floor has a hard smooth surface you may need to scarify or bead blast the surface so the thinset will adhere.

 

[Bryce]

Thank you for the quick reply.

The surface is smooth-ish but not polished. Is the pva I mentioned not the solution for giving a surface to adhere to?

Weather wise.. Its always cold and wet here, however my garage is water tight and stays above freezing due to hot water tank and central heating boiler being in there.

 

[duneslider]

I have to be honest, I don't know what the PVA is you talk about. There are some good bonding agents we have here that could do what you say. However, I have no idea what you have over there. You guys actually have some really great stuff we can't get over here. Over here there is much more wood frame construction so we are more geared for that type of work. You don't have trees so everything is brick, stone, concrete so you have a broader range of those sorts of products.

 

[Bryce]

PVA is a glue. Its used in schools for sticking paper together!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_acetate

 

[Bryce]

PVA glue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_acetate