Ceramic Tile Over Wood Subfloor Installation

Cement backer board can provide a solid flat surface to install tiles on if you have a wood subfloor.

Ceramic tile over wood subfloor installation.

If installing over an appropriate wood surface sand the wood to make it smoother and remember that the installation will work better over a subfloor at least 1 1 8 inches thick. The 2 3 s would be standing up on their side so. Hope you didn t like your beautiful new tile floor. While tile can be laid on plywood do not install tile directly onto the plywood subfloor itself.

Second the strength of wood boards isn t always consistent. Try laying tile over 1 2 durock or hardie and see what happens when the joists are 19 2 or 24 on center. Lay down inch exterior plywood the opposite direction and screw to the inch. Use intervening layers of two sheets of plywood.

Laying tile on plywood. Tile floors are heavy and tile is a hard material. If you must install over such surfaces it is best to install a backer board over the old surface and install the tile on the backer board. First changes in humidity make solid wood shrink swell and cup more than plywood.

According to backer board manufacturers and tile setters installing backer board directly over an old solid wood subfloor is risky for a couple of reasons. Tile can be installed over a plywood substrate and it is actually a fantastic way to make sure you don t have deflection in your floor.