Thursday, February 25, 2010

Can I wall tile in a bathroom onto existing emulsion paint?

It was sand cement rendered and skimmed six months ago, but I painted the walls when I did the ceiling.Can I wall tile in a bathroom onto existing emulsion paint?
Tend to agree with Buster on this one.





I have had to make repairs to shower enclosures where people have seen fit to tile straight onto painted walls. The adhesive usually comes clean away.





However I would like to add that if you are tiling on a solid wall and remove some of the top skim and get down to the cement render finish (assuming it is not a lime render finish) then the cement render finish will give an excellent surface for tiling.





When renovating houses we tend not to skim (with multi finish) cement render walls that are going to be tiled if the tiles are to cover a large area.





If the walls are stud walls and you are fitting a shower then I would strongly suggest you either replace the plasterboard with aquapanel or similar, or use a 6mm hardibacker panel glued and screwed on top. This will drastically reduce the likelihood of the tiles coming off due to water ingress.Can I wall tile in a bathroom onto existing emulsion paint?
Yes, but to be on the safe side, give it a good coat of uni-bond first.
No, The tiles will be fixed to the paint and the fix will be only as strong as the paint.


I would as least cut scores into the wall as much as possible to give a better fix and remove all paint above the bath (if fitting above the bath shower). then seal with PVA./ water mix.





(plumber %26amp; bathroom installer)
If you're on a budget and can't afford the Unibond, just paint over the wall with a diluted PVA mixture first, and use a decent tile adhesive...

No comments:

Post a Comment