Tiling question

TKK

We've decided, as part of other renovations to the hall, to replace the (badly marked) pine floor with tiles as, being a hall, there is a large volume of traffic.

I took up the pine boards yesterday and instead of them being laid on ply as I originally thought they were laid on OSB which has been express nailed to the concrete.

As the sitting room is the same (pine on OSB) and the kitchen is on it's second layer of tiles (previous owners put down new without ripping up old) I'm inclined to leave this in place for height reasons (stops there being > 1" step into sitting room). Can I tile direct onto OSB? If so it would save me the hassle of ripping that up and replacing it with ply.

As this is the hall and only access point to upstairs is in the middle, I'm wondering how long do tiles have to be down before it's ok to walk on them?

Is it possible to get door saddles which can cope with different floor levels? Where is a good place in the Kildare/West Dublin area?

TKK

Anybody?

Finneganjp

I would not advise you to lay your tiles on OSB. Its bad enough laying them on WBP upstairs but if you can avoid it down stairs I would. Rip up the OSB and lay the tiles on concrete. If tiles are layed on timber, special flexible adhesive is required. It is only a matter of time before the tiles come loose or the grout pops. WRT the different floor levels, special timber reducers can be bought in any builders/floor merchants to compensate the difference in floor levels. A this is also a hall and there will be a heavy volume of traffic I would deffinatly avoid laying tiles on timber.

TKK

The problem with laying the tiles on the concrete that is it will mean a step of an inch and a half or more into the sitting room and also about the same into the hall from the front door as everything seems to have been done with a view to the floors being raised above the level of the concrete.