How to Pick the Accurate Tile Adhesive for Your Place

There is an entire industry based on Tile Adhesives, and it’s large and it’s competitive.

On the market today, there are dozens of tile adhesive types which differ from each other depending on the application at hand. For each one of these, there will be a different recipe, different mix ratios, and a different quality of ingredients. We shall examine how such an industry should come to exist, when traditional sand and cement performed the exact same task, and at a much lower price. After all, your new tiles are only going to look their best if they’re fitted correctly. However, we’ve put together this handy guide to help you make the right choice if you’re choosing adhesive yourself.

Flooring is an important part of any building, as it adds the beauty and charm to every room and ultimately to your home. Tiles are the most commonly used material for flooring as they are very durable and available at a cheaper price. Tile adhesive is a special type of glue used to fix tiles all around the home. Tile adhesive is a ready-made mixture made from Portland cement, polymers such as epoxy and selected aggregate particles with some additives added in it to improve its property for laying tiles.

There’s two different types of tile adhesive, ready mixed pastes and powdered adhesives.

As the name suggests, ready mixed pastes can be used straight out of the tub so they’re pretty easy to use. But with ease comes limitations – in general, pastes can only be used to fix smaller ceramic tiles to walls.

On the other hand, powdered adhesives need to be mixed with water into a slurry which takes a little more time and effort. However, they offer a far stronger bond and in general, can be used to fit ceramic, porcelain and natural stone tiles to almost any substrate

What substrate are you fixing to?

As we mentioned above, there’s a whole host of different substrates that tiles can be fixed to. Let’s look at the most common options:

1. Walls – Plaster and Plasterboard
2. Floors – Timber
3. Floors – Concrete or screed

To lay tiles with sand-cement traditional way is to apply the mixture of sand-cement in lump on tiles’ back so it has to be done with one tile at a time.

Without additive to help retaining water, mixture of sand-cement dries fast and then causes the difficulty to adjust the tiles after being laid. This leads to aesthetic problem of the line of tiles and also poor bonding strength, which will be the reason of de-bonded tiles later.

Laying tiles traditional way by applying sand- cement mixture in lump at tiles’ back will create voids underneath the tiles and water can seep through. This creates white stain problem. Moreover, tile will be fragile at the area without any adhesive underneath

Thick layer of sand-cement mixture must be used to lay tile traditionally in lump and/or to adjust the floor level, in order to gain its bonding mechanism. There will then be more loads onto structure. Moreover, there will be material wastage since the mixture dries faster than the application.

Additional Resource: What is polished plaster?

So what are the benefits for using tile adhesive to lay tiles?

• Tile adhesive is very easy to use; it will be already ready to use after just mixing with water. Bagging product makes it convenient for transportation process, providing low dust and clean working space. Research the best plaster accelerator to boost the speed of your plastering. This allows application of a very thin layer of tile adhesive which can be as small as 3 mm.
• Tiles are not needed to be soaked, just un-box them and lay.
• Optimum setting time of tile adhesive allows tiles to be easily adjusted within a certain period of time. It makes tiles being laid in line and gives the aesthetic final look.
• Applying tile adhesive with notched trowel provides full spread on the back of tiles and will reduce many problems like broken tiles on the corner, water seeping, and stain or efflorescent.
• Full contact of the adhesive on tiles’ back and substrate provides strong bonding strength and long lasting tiling work.
• Tile adhesives are formulated according to specific applications such as to lay tiles, glass mosaics, large-size granite (up from 60 x 60 cm), to lay tiles on polished substrates, on dry wall system, on existing tiles without removing them, on external areas, parking areas, industrial areas, in swimming pools, and many more.
• Laying tiles by using tile adhesive with notched trowel requires less amount of material. Adhesive layer is a lot thinner than the mixture of sand- cement, and this leads to lighter load to building structure. A bag of 20 kg tile adhesive can be used to lay tiles on the average area of 4 – 5 m2

Gone are the days when people used to rely on cement for the purpose of sticking bricks together or tiles to the floor. Tile adhesive has replaced cement nowadays. However, cement is still being used for bricks but not for tiles. Using cement as a tile adhesive has many difficulties like after some time it gets loose and tiles tend to move out of their place. It’s not a very strong adhesive for tiles. Also, holes might be created under the tiles which can result in breakage or weird sounds coming out of them while moving a heavy object.

Now that you know the major benefits of using tile adhesive, call for Glues and Tools. We offer a wide variety of MCB adhesives, Ardex adhesives, ASA adhesives, construction chemical adhesives and much more. To know more about that you can ask anything in the comment section.