Can I Use 1/4 Cement Board On Floors

How to Install Cement Board on a Floor

Updated: Oct. 05, 2018

Brand a solid, durable base for floor tile.

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Laying cement board is the easiest way to assure a solid, durable base for a ceramic tile floor. We evidence yous how to install a offset-grade tile base of operations.

What y'all need for a tile base

If you want to supersede an former, croaky tile floor or other blazon of flooring with new ceramic tile, it's absolutely imperative that yous create a solid setting base for the new tile. If you lot're working over a wood subfloor, cement board is the right choice for your tile base. No thing what you lot're told at a home center, information technology's non a proficient idea to install tile directly over plywood, peculiarly in a clammy area like a bath. Considering plywood expands and contracts beneath the ceramic tile, grout and tile failure (loose tiles and cracked, crumbling grout) is just a matter of time. Correctly installed cement board provides a very stable base that's permanently bound to the tile with thin-fix mortar so your new tile floor volition final a very long time. "Correctly installed" is the fundamental.

Effigy A: Ceramic Tile Floor Details

Notation: Y'all tin can download and print Figure A from Additional Information below.

v steps to a sound ceramic flooring

1. Prepare a solid, squeak-free subfloor I of the keys to a long-lasting tile installation is the underlying subfloor. It has to be stone solid before you lay the 1/ii-in. thick cement board. Whatever your subfloor is fabricated of, be sure it's squeak free before y'all install the cement lath. Screwing the plywood down to the floor joists should take intendance of most squeaks.

To determine your subfloor construction, pull off a heating grate and await at the exposed subfloor edges. Hither's how to set up the near common subfloor types:

1/2-in. plywood with v/8-in. particleboard underlayment. Remove the particleboard and screw the plywood to the flooring joists with 1-5/8 in. drywall screws spaced every 6 in. Install a layer of v/viii-in. CDX plywood and screw it to the subfloor with one-5/8 in. drywall screws spaced every 4 in.
3/4-in. natural language-and-groove plywood or OSB (oriented strand board). No extra layers of underlayment are required. Simply screw the floor downwards with 1-5/8 in. drywall screws spaced every 6 in.
Vinyl flooring glued over 1/4-in. underlayment. As long equally the subfloor is 3/4-in. tongue-and-groove cloth, spiral the underlayment down right through the vinyl with 1-1/4-in. drywall screws spaced every vi in. Use one/4-in. thick cement board instead of the usual 1/two-in. cement boards that some in sheets. That'll continue the flooring thickness to a minimum.

ii. Get rid of the high ridges and sink the fasteners Check all plywood seams with a straightedge held perpendicular to the seams. If it teeter-totters over whatever joints, use a belt sander to grind downwards the ridge so information technology's fifty-fifty with the rest of the floor. Set whatever "proud" nail- or screwheads.

three. Embed the cement board in latex-modified thin-set mortar The master reason for using thin-set betwixt the cement board and the subfloor isn't as much for bonding as information technology is for even, void-complimentary cement lath support throughout the floor. Precut and fit all the cement board then lift all of the cement boards out. And so spread thinset mortar with the flat side of a i/iv-in. notched trowel and use the notched edge to "comb" the mortar. Embed the cement board and screw it to the underlayment with special 1-1/4 in. cement board screws spaced every 4 in.

iv. Tape the seams Lay cement lath fiberglass mesh tape over all the seams (it's sticky on one side). Use a broad putty pocketknife or a flat trowel to spread thin-set mortar over the tape, making sure to knock down any ridges or high spots.

5. Lay the tile in thin-set Gear up the tiles using the same latex-modified thin-set and techniques used for the cement board. Just mix as much thin-gear up as you can use in a one-half 60 minutes and be sure to have solid support under each tile. If you follow all these steps, you'll have a strong, monolithic, fissure-free floor.

Additional Information

Figure A: Ceramic Tile Base Details

Originally Published: Oct 04, 2018