Perfect adhesive for new screeds

BAL Green Screed Adhesive dramatically reduces necessary screed drying times, making it ideal for tiling onto new screeds against tight deadlines. Laying tiles before a screed is completely dry means risking drying shrinkage movement. This can cause lost adhesion, bulging tiles or cracking tiles or grout.

According to BS 5385, a new cement/sand screed should be allowed at least three weeks to dry before tiling starts. For new concrete,: the Standard recommends at least six weeks for it to dry. Sometimes, even a few days is too long to wait.

A tiler using BAL Green Screed Adhesive can avoid weeks of delay. Just one day of drying is needed before tiling onto new cement/sand, saving 20 days. With concrete, just seven days of drying are required, a five-week time saving.

BAL Green Screed Adhesive suits most tile types, including porcelain and can be used indoors and outside. It has strong water and frost resistance and is ideal for both dry and wet areas, including swimming pools and showers. As with all BAL products, it carries a full 25-year guarantee and is available nationwide from more than 500 authorised distributors.

For more information about tiling onto new screeds or general tiling advice visit Tilerworld Tilers Forums

BAL Variset XP Contollable Setting Adhesive

Too Hot... Too cold...

NO TIME... STRESSED... At last – tiling on your terms

You plan and schedule every tiling job down to the last detail. But there’s always been one thing you couldn’t control: the temperature on site. Its affect on the adhesive can be a pain. Wasted product because it’s dried too quickly in the heat. Or wasted time when it’s cold because you’re waiting for it to set. Now, these problems are over. BAL has found the answer.

NEW Variset XP Adhesive

This remarkable, fast-drying adhesive powder, with its separate liquid, lets you select the working time you need and adjust the time it takes to set. Putting YOU back in control – whatever the temperature.

Too good to be true? No worries! Variset XP won’t let you down: it’s flexible with excellent bond strength – even on porcelain tiles – and is water/frost-resistant.

For you, it means real practical and commercial benefits.

Heatwave on the way High temperatures mean your usual rapid-setting adhesive dries TOO fast – before it’s

even been applied.

Do you switch to a normalsetting product, and accept the 24-hour wait to grout?

Sudden cold snap No heating on site although it should still be ok to fix – just! But the adhesive is going to

take an age to set.

Does it mean tearing up the work schedule?

Really want to fit in grouting today The work is running a bit behind. It’s looking like the last tiles won’t be placed in time for the adhesive to set, and for us still to be able to grout today.

Is postponing grouting to tomorrow inevitable?

Restricted time window for job The site is a public environment that’s open daily. Just a couple of hours overnight to do some of the tiling, and allow for the adhesive to set, before cleaning up and morning opening.

Is that the most you can expect to achieve in each window?

Must complete this week New contract must start on Monday. It’s on a knife-edge. There should be just enough time to do the necessary, but one blip is all it takes...

Should you just hope for the best?

You can now answer “No” to ALL of these questions – by saying “YES” to BAL Variset XP.

How it works: BAL Variset XP powder on its own, mixed with water, would set in about 10 minutes at 20ºC – and even sooner in very hot conditions. When Variset XP liquid is added to the mix, it slows down this drying process. The bigger the dose, the longer the working and setting time.

It’s as simple as...

1. Check the room/tiling area temperature using the thermolabel on the Variset XP Liquid bottle neck (look for the green box under the scale).

NOTE: Allow bottle to acclimatise in the tiling area for 10 minutes before reading temperature.

2. Decide the working/setting time required in relation to temperature, time of day and/or planned job scheduling.

3. Consult the Dosage table on each 20kg sack of Variset XP powder.

4. Add required dosage of Variset XP liquid to the water before the powder goes in (mix ratio: 20kg Variset XP powder to 4 litres water). When smooth and lump-free, start using immediately.

For all Contractors, time efficiency and cost efficiency go hand in hand. Keeping the Customers satisfied is equally important. For them, installation quality and completion dates are two big priorities. Until now, any one of the following typical situations could put one or more of those crucial goals at risk:

Muti-residential unit

A fixed-price contract to refurbish a large apartment block can involve several separate small, almost identical projects. Each dwelling might only involve 10m2 of tiling for each. Such an area might require 6 hours tiling. With a typical fast-drying adhesive – set after 3 hours – it wouldn’t be ready for grouting until the following working day. So, 1.5 days per project. Alternatively, switching to Variset XP after 2-3 hours still means all tiles in place after the 6 hours, but grouting can start immediately. By the time

the fixer gets to the final tiled section, it too is ready for grouting. Now it’s completion

in just one day – or 6 completions in six days instead of 4.

Shopping Mall

Being able to complete and sign-off floor sections sooner can be worth £££s in extra selling time for the Mall

Clients, as well as significant savings in contract team wage costs per m2 tiled. Normally, for a given area of

tiling, fixing could take much of the day, but the adhesive wouldn’t be dry until after the working day ends. Grouting must wait until the following morning. By using Variset XP and controlling your setting times , you can plan that the adhesive is dry in time for that whole floor section to be grouted the same day.

Contractors can achieve project completion sign-off – and payment – sooner.

Tiling to Timber sub floors

Here is a general guide to our recommendations for tiling to timber.

The most important thing, when tiling to timber floors is to ensure that the floor is sufficiently rigid and stable enough to support :

1. The weight of tiling.
2. The amount of traffic i.e. foot or otherwise.

Recommended fixing centres are (300mm etc), however I would suggest that a 6mm thick proprietray board would not add that much more additional strength, in terms of rigidity (i.e amount of deflection within the existing timber floor), but as a general rule of thumb will normally provide a better surface to receive ceramic tiles.

Our recommendations would always be, when applying an overlay of less than 15mm thick plywood (as recommended in BS 5385-3) that providing there is no obvious movement or "bounce" in the floor simply by walking upon it, to use an elastomeric adhesive such as the new BAL Single Part Fastflex.

Joints between the tiles may be filled with BAL Wide Joint Grout with BAL Admix GT1 (Diluted 1:1 by volume with water).

If required, even though the floor is small, if you are concerned that the floor is still moving too much even with a 6mm No More Ply overlay (or any other board for that matter), that a minimum 15mm plywood overlay is applied to the existing timber floor, which should then allow tiling to be carried out with either BAL Single Part Flexible or BAL Supercover Rapid Flex

Joints between the tiles may then be filled with BAL Superflex Wide Joint Grout (equivalent to BAL Wide Joint Grout with BAL Admix GT1 diluted 2:1 by volume with water).

In conclusion, if the adhesive is not elastomeric , then the adhesive may be able to deform when subjected to deflection but will allow the movement to be transferred directly to the tiled finish, therefore there is an increased risk that tiles could crack, if the movement was significant enough.

An elastomeric adhesive such as BAL Single Part Fastflex will be able to offer additional protection by absorbing some of the floor movement within the adhesive itself thus helping to further protect the tiling layer above as well as maintaining the bond between the adhesive and tile. This therefore will provide additional assurances regarding longevity of tiling.

For more information ask a question on the TilerWorld Forum

Tiling onto Vinyl Tiles

When faced with tiling over vinyl tiles we would recommend the following;

1. Ideally remove, mechanically, about 80% of the old vinyl adhesive residue, exposing the concrete floor beneath.
2. If you are able to do this using a long handled scraper, needle gun (if appropriate) or other type of suitable mechanical abrasion tool, direct fixing of the ceramic tiles may be carried out using e.g. BAL Supercover Rapid Set or other suitable BAL Adhesive.
3. Priming should only be necessary if the exposed concrete appears to be porous/aborbent after treatment to remove the residues. In this is the case vacuum off all loose dusty material from the surface and prime use BAL Prime APD (Dliuted 1:1 by volume with water).

4. If you are not able to remove 80% of the residue, then providing all of the loose vinyl adhesive residues are removed mechanically and the remaining residues are sound and well bonded to the concrete , apply BAL Acrybase in a minimum 3mm bed depth and allow to dry for at least 4 hours before tiling commences.

N.B If the floor is part of a wet room i.e. water via the shower head falls directly onto it, then it is essential to ensure that some form of waterproof tanking layer is in existance and located within the floor construction in order to prevent water penetration through the floor.

For more information: http://www.tilerworld.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=667