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The newer versions of Cement tile backer board or Cementitious Backer Units (CBU’s), are very similar to the original cement backer board. How do these boards differ? What materials are they made from? What problems do they claim to solve and which do they actually solve? That brings us to the actual shower tile backer board products out there today. This makes it difficult to use only one product to address both, even with the high-tech products available today. The swelling/ deflection problem is very different from the moisture transmission problem, and they needed to be addressed in different ways. And some tile backer boards also address this problem, while others only pretend to address it. Excessive moisture tended to become trapped in the shower wall causing some serious problems.Įventually some great waterproofing products and strategies were introduced to address the moisture/ vapor transmission problem. In other words, these early backer boards didn’t hold up well to the moisture exposure of a typical old-school shower.Īlthough the problem of swelling/ deflection in the backer board was largely solved, the negative implications of vapor/ moisture transmission through the shower wall were not fully understood for a long while after cement backer board was introduced.Įventually they realized that with todays modern “air tight” homes, moisture that entered the structure was not dissipating as it was in older homes.

This led to a cascade reaction of movement, grout line cracking, and more moisture entering the wallboard.Īnd with moisture and warmth also came mold growth and still further deterioration. With no waterproofing membrane, the wallboard absorbed significant moisture, causing it to swell and became more flexible. Moisture behind the tile assembly caused a few major issues. It wasn’t long before it was discovered that a significant amount of moisture passes through tile and grout, especially ceramic tile and unsealed cementitious grout. It was used everywhere in the home including the shower.ĭrywall was considered to be an adequate shower tile substrate because tile and grout was assumed to be mostly waterproof.
#Install hardibacker board on subfloor crack
Otherwise, your tiles will rock on top of the heads and could crack when somebody steps on them wrong.In the early days, gypsum wall board was created to replace the very labor-intensive lath and plaster walls, and became the dominant wall board in the 1950’s. turns out they weren't, but I was worried at the time.Įdit: make sure you get the heads of the screws to countersink below the surface of the cement board. I did mine this way because we were worried that the tiles were asbestos. Same problem can happen with the refrigerator if you have a cabinet above it with tight clearance. but I had to completely remove the feet on the dishwasher to get it to fit back under the cabinet. I did something similar in my house and it worked fine. Given your description, this should give you a solid floor. Make sure the screws are long enough to fully penetrate the subfloor. I use the green cement board screws, every foot on the perimeter and every foot in the main field in both directions (a 3x5 board gets 24 screws I think). read:stuck).Īfter that, I say skip the thinset and screw the crap out of the concrete backer board. Make sure that the height of the backer board and tile together won't cause other issues (such as the dishwasher being "permanently" installed. Thinsetting under the concrete board will take up valuable time if I can skip this step it will make things a lot easier. I also have other stuff I am doing as well and it's not like I can just go back next weekend and finish if we don't this weekend since my sister lives about five hours away. I don't want to screw over the person that buys the house and have them have to re-tile the floor down the road but at the same time my time doing this project is limited to just three days this weekend. How necessary of a step is thinsetting under the concrete board? If I skip this step what is the likelihood of tiles "popping" up once the job is finished? It's not an adhesive but is used to sure up the floor and fill any voids where the floor is unlevel. However, when I started to research a bit about installation tips I found a lot of people saying you need to put a layer of thinset under the concrete backer board. The floor in the kitchen seems pretty level. The current kitchen floor is linoleum and I planned on just screwing down some concrete backer board and then tiling over that. She is getting a house prepared to sell it. In the past I used Schluter-DITRA but this time the person I am tiling for (sister) is trying to do this on the cheap. I am tiling a kitchen floor this weekend.
