Setting Large Tile In Tub Surround

Song- “Keeping On” by Rampant Design

Sometimes you just have the feeling that this may be a really good job, I mean a really good job. This may even be the perfect job. I’ve always said that there is no such thing as a perfect job because there’s always some mistake you make, even the most unnoticeable mistake. But it’s still a mistake so no job is ever perfect.

This really turned out to be a pretty well. Probably one of the smoothest installations of tile that I can recall. But from the start, it was probably one of the squirreliest, weird little bathrooms I have run across in a very long time. It was long and skinny and had the toilet set right next to the tub in such a way that you had about 2 feet of clearance to get in and out of the tub without bumping into the toilet.

So the homeowners definitely wanted to come up with a way to increase the size of the bathroom and we had a large closet for the bedroom right next to the toilet so there were some options.

Since we were installing a new tub, I needed to strip away all the sheet rock above the existing tub. The wing wall that enclosed the tub was sticking out way more into the room that it needed to, so I shaved off about 6 inches of that as a first step to increasing the width and the feel of the bathroom.

It’s always fun to do major demolition, so to get more room I started tearing off sheet rock on the common wall with the closet. Here’s a good example of why you never stick a saw blade into a wall without knowing what you may be cutting into. Here I cut the half-inch sheet rock with a multitool so I knew I was only going the depth of the sheet rock with my cut and it was a good thing here. When you need more space and you get the sheet rock torn off then you start to get an idea as to what possibilities are going to be. So now I just needed to relocate the toilet flange and extend the sewer line and water supply line a few feet and major changes to the bathroom layout were happening.

We even ended up with enough extra room to add a linen storage closet. So with everything closed back up again, it was time to set the new tub and prep the walls and floor for final tile finishes.

In the work that I have done over the years, I’ve never used a product I have been happier with then hardibacker. As a base to set tile on, there’s just nothing any better. It comes in 3 x 5′ sheets which are easy to handle. If you predrill your holes it doesn’t break or crack when you screw into it. And it will outlast the useful life of the tile without question. It’s a bit dusty to cut, so you need to wear a mask when working with it. But other than that, it may be the perfect product for the perfect job.

When it comes to setting tile on top of a wood floor never, ever set the tile directly on the subfloor. I don’t care if the adhesive says that it can be used for tile on wood, tile and wood in direct contact with each other is always a bad idea. The reason is wood moves. It moves with humidity changes. If it gets wet it expands. Tile doesn’t move. It is not flexible. So when tile is in contact with wood, it will always lose which means it cracks.

I’ve had good success using a layer of thinset with quarter-inch hardibacker on top of it and screwed down well. It’s better to use half-inch hardibacker, but a lot of times that’s difficult because of the height of the finished floor as compared to the height of carpet or other flooring it may but against the tile. Just like with wall tile, this gives you a good surface to stick the floor tile to. It also provides an isolation layer that helps to minimize any effects that movement from the wood subfloor might have on the tile. The only thing of concern now is the joints in the hardibacker. But you can span those joints with fiberglass joint tape and a layer of thinset over that to help protect the tile from cracking along those joints.

So is this the perfect tile job? Umm, pretty close. At least as far back as I can remember.

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