12x24 Tiles for Shower wall


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Old 03-21-16, 07:17 PM
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12x24 Tiles for Shower wall

To save time and efforts, I plan to tile the bathtub surrounding walls with 12x24 inch ceramic tiles.

Is it something feasible? and what precautions or cares one should take while doing this job.

I have done 12x12 tiles on bathtub surround before and it went pretty well. I used the maximum strength glue instead of the thin set mortar in that project.

Thanks all for the inputs.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 03:28 AM
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Without a doubt the larger tile will fail if you don't use thinset. Mastic never really dries and can be reactivated with moisture, so it isn't a good adhesive material in a wet area. 12x24 tile will be a little ominous in a small tub/shower area, since there will only be two full tile in your run with a cut end. You'll have to deal with the weight of the tile as well. Do you already have the concrete backer underlayment installed?
 
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Old 03-22-16, 09:35 AM
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Also, the larger the tile, the flatter the surface on which you're mounting them needs to be.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 02:27 PM
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Search for thinsets labeled as for large format tile. My favorite is called UltraLite by Mapei, it is real sticky and will help you fight the sag that comes with heavy tile on a wall.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 02:49 PM
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Thanks for the inputs. Agree 12x24 would incurr only 2.5 tiles and might not give much for design etc. Also the surface which is pretty flat would show even slight tilt in angle of the walls. Will go for 12x12 instead. Will the mastic be fine on that. The HD person said for wall tiles the max. strength glue is needed rather than thinset. Please advise what is the final answer on this. Will go with what this forum says.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 04:34 PM
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Reiterating my original post, mastic is not approved in a wet area. Use thinset. The tile person at HD worked in appliances last week and garden center before that, so there you go.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 05:55 PM
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Agree with Larry on this. Thinset from a mix, no mastic. If you need a alternate opinion, talk to the stock clerk in a box store who has never installed a piece of tile in his life. But that is just me, a lonely contractor who does this for a living...Remodeling is not easy, if it was, I'd be out of a job.
 
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Old 03-22-16, 06:18 PM
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Thanks Gentlemen for the precise inputs. Very lucky that I brought this topic up as I was going to go ahead with 12x24 without even considering the fine points like flatness of the wall or the end product on how it would look with 1.5 and 2.5 total tiles on small and big walls.

So thinset is the way to go. Thanks again everyone!!
 
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Old 03-23-16, 12:18 PM
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Looks like you're already convinced () but one more vote here for thinset and not mastic.
 
 

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