Thinset on Concrete

hi how're you doing I'm here getting ready to install some ceramic tile on this concrete slab and I want to tell you right now I'm just going to give you a few tips I could give you hundreds and hundreds of tips about installing a ceramic tile floor but this is only going to be a really short video not a three-hour DVD so just keep that in mind what I want to show you is first of all if you're going to work on a hard surface like this one tip use kneepads really good ones or some type of contraption like this that's got some nice foam to keep your knees off that hard surface if you do that a lot you're going to really hurt your knees believe me the next thing is I'm installing this tile on a concrete slab as you can see and there used to be a wall right here and this was just a little storage room where I'm kneeling and we're going to continue this existing ceramic tile unfortunately whoever put the ceramic tile in here they did not put down a crack isolation membrane and if I put one down here it's going to make this war tile too high so I have to put the tile directly onto the concrete I looked at the concrete it's got its fiber mesh reinforced there are no cracks so we should be okay but in this case I have to put it right down to the slab what I'm going to use is thin set mortar which I've already mixed up and you can see the consistency of it it's kind of thick but it will fall off this knife and what the reason you want to use the thin set is because we're putting floor tile down and that thin set will get as hard as rock it's basically cement is what it is or concrete and it won't allow the tile to push down and crack under pressure or under tension but one of the tricks is I've already scraped the floor to make sure that there are no there's nothing on this concrete but here's a mistake that a lot of tile guys make is they'll just they'll sweep the floor and then put their thinset down well you know what the floor could still be dusty here's a really great trick just take some clean water and a sponge and just lightly clean the concrete like this right where you're getting ready to put the thinset down you don't want it to be too wet but the advantage is that gets rid of all the dust and it makes for a really really good bond with a thin set because the concrete the dry slabs not going to pull the moisture out of the thinset too quickly I just then go ahead and put some inset on like this you can see that consistency you have to use a notch trowel like this it makes a really neat corduroy texture watch you want to make sure that you don't get any of that thin set on the adjacent tire yeah that's looking good and you want to hold this trowel at about a 45 degree angle if you hold it too flat you'll scrape too much of the thin sit away yeah you want to keep it away from those lines it's really easy to work with this new so sorry about all that loud noise oh yeah look at that make sure that thin sets all the way up to the line this simple and all we got to do is pick up a tile I've got my line right here I know that I'm going to maintain a 3/8 inch joint between the two and it's that easy to put in you know push it down make sure it's nice and into the thin set and it's really pretty that's pretty much that simple there's lots of other stuff you need to know about how to put ceramic tile down but that's just a quick tip to make sure that that thin sets going to really bond well to that concrete slab get that concrete slab a little damp before you put the thin set down i'm tim carter for asterbilt comm if you want to discover more home improvement tips go to ask the Builder calm you

Channel: Ask the Builder

Views: 1,666,916

Keywords: thinset, thin, set, concrete, mortar, askthebuilder, tim, carter, home, house, diy, howto, flooring

Id: eyvCzg-g_ek

Length: 5min 16sec (316 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2009