Home Improvement Project Advice

I have a couple projects I'm going to be starting and I was hoping you guys could give me some advice.

1) I have a painted basement floor, so can I lay the tile thinset directly over this or is there some prep I need to do first? Could I lay backedboard on the painted floor or would this cause a moisture issue? I've layed tile before but never on a painted floor.

2) I have block basement walls which are drylok'ed. I want to build a studded wall which will be a couple inches from the block wall due to some drain pipes. I know I need to use pressure treated for the bottom plate. but do I need to use any vapor barrier between the block and the stud wall?

Thanks Guys,

I asked my wifes boss and he said to rent an 8 inch cup grinder and get all the paint up. He said it will rough it up but when you put the mortar or whatever down in will adhere. If you leave the paint and it starts to chip or come up, so will the flooring.

http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25634

Perhaps this link will help. Also, see the post with a link to building science.

Hope your floor slab is pretty level. Most aren't and it makes tiling tough.

You could prep it by roughing the paint off as stated or you could fasten a subfloor to it either with a sleeper joist system between the slab and your floor covering or using some product like dri-core panels (they are mean to be tongue & groove floating but I've seen one fastened for this purpose in a basement).

I don't think you'd need to vapour between the studs and blocks. Just the sill should do it. Metal studs are another option and they are easy and not much more money.

Lumm0x hit it on the head. Glad I read through the posts before I start repeating the same advice. good luck on your project and make sure you use adequate ventilation and a respirator when you prep the floor.

Thanks for the help...hopefully things work out. But we know how these projects drag on...

Good luck spider, know how it is, we currently have a plywood kitchen floor.

I have a finished basement and used a floating engineered hardwood floor. It was beautiful and really expensive tigerwood. NEVER had a water problem until about 3 weeks ago. Unbeknownst to me, a crack developed in the foundation and Hurricane Irene came thru PA. Water EVERYWHERE. Floor, fucked.

Here's what I recommend (and this is what I'm going to do now): Rough the floors and install the tile directly to the cement slab. This way, if you ever have any kind of water problem, you can simply shop vac it up or squeegee it to the sump pit. Just lay some area rugs down if it is too cold. Subfloors will help with floor warmth, but then you have to potentially rip all of that out after a water problem. Tile right to the floor FTW. Just assume at some point there will be water and take every countermeasure possible.

Even thought you think you have a dry basement, shit happens. Cracks, burst pipes, you never know. Fortune favors the prepared.

Also, I recommend metal studs too for the same water reasons. No vapor barrier needed. Insulate your walls. Most roll insulation has vapor barrier in it already, just make sure the correct side is facing the exterior.

SpiderPlant007 wrote:

I have a couple projects I'm going to be starting and I was hoping you guys could give me some advice.

1) I have a painted basement floor, so can I lay the tile thinset directly over this or is there some prep I need to do first? Could I lay backedboard on the painted floor or would this cause a moisture issue? I've layed tile before but never on a painted floor.

2) I have block basement walls which are drylok'ed. I want to build a studded wall which will be a couple inches from the block wall due to some drain pipes. I know I need to use pressure treated for the bottom plate. but do I need to use any vapor barrier between the block and the stud wall?

Thanks Guys,

1-The guys are all right about it being a bit of a pain to lay tile on a basement floor. Good advise to scuff the floor, but I think it'd be a ton easier to go to you local tool rental place (RSC or whatever you have) and rent a walk behind floor grinder, but I'm sure the cup grinder would work well too. To avoid leveling issues, all you have to do is pour a small coat of self leveling concrete patcher. Several products out there that will do the trick. Biggest problem with doing the above properly is that it will take a bit of work and money before you're ready to lay your floor. So let me give you another option. Floating floors have made huge leaps in quality and selection over the past sever years and there are tons of benefits to using them and in your case the main benefit would be that you wouldn't need to do any prep. You can leave your floor exactly the way it is right now and start laying your floor. The flooring may be a little more expensive per tile or whatever, but you're saving lots of money and time in prep work. We use a floating porcelain floor made by Avaire and it's sweeeet. It has an interlocking rubberized plastic backing that allows all the tiles to snap together, giving you a perfect grout line every time and installs so fast. You could literally tile the whole basement in a day with no problems. Grouting is also much easier with product. Because it's a floating floor, you can use regular grout. You use one of two different kinds of flexible grout that the same company provides. (lots of different colors) This grout is the bomb. I have a display in my showroom in which I layed about 50 square feet of this flooring right on top of carpet to show the grout and tiles durability. It's been in the showroom for three years and not a single crack anywhere. To top it off, there is no need to seal this kind of grout because it's made with urethane, so it's sealed for life. The grout installs the same way as normal grout except you clean it as you go as opposed to having to come back the next day to wipe it down. It really is an awesome product and I think would give you the look that you want without all the hastle of traditional tiling. Water is not a problem with this type of flooring because it is actual porcelain tile, not a faux laminant, like some of the other "wood and tile looking" products. Here's a link to their site and you can holler at me if you have other questions about it. http://www.avairefloors.com/index.aspx There are other options out there as well, such as Mannington's Sobella flooring just to name one. Any way you go, you could do yourself a favor by looking at some other options outside of traditional tiling.

2- Metal studs are actually cheaper, but.....they're cheaper. i wouldn't recommend it at all. Go ahead with treated studs where ever they touch concrete, which means bottom plate and most likely the verticals as well. Vapor barrier may be optional, you can check with your local building office, but that's something that's really one of those things that I think is too cheap not to do. You might get away without it, but you may regret not doing it later as the ROI on that type of thing is a landslide.

one thing I left out on the floating tile. You won't have to do any floor leveling so long as there are no areas that dip more than i think 1/2" over a two foot run. Exact specs on that are on the website I posted above. If there are any places over the margin, just use floor patch. You still won't have to go through the process of removing all that paint. Plus leaving the paint is another vapor barrier for free.

some other things to think about....metal studs rust. not meant to be water proof. They are NOT good for water proned areas and in some places it's against code to use them in basements. Only benefit is they're cheaper, but a pain otherwise......mortar setting tile in a way that you can walk away and say "Water won't be a problem with this floor" is easier said than done. Think of all the tile bathrooms you've seen in your life and think of how they deteriorate with water. Traditional tile and mortar and grout have to first be installed perfectly and then maintained perfectly for that statement to be made. As I said before, there are a ton of options to give you the look and feel you want with easy installation as well as easy maintenance and cleaning.

And I guess Google is doing it's job on this site as I noticed the ad banner on the side had this link in it. http://www.basementsystems.com/lp/ppc/thermaldry/index.php?ppc=googleppc-bs&gclid=CMen6pvDoqsCFQi87Qod9jA5gg