todays tile adhesives

European Standard for tile adhesives and –grouts modern unglazed tiles called “ultragres” or “porcelanosa” and getting bigger and thinner thickness between 3 and 6 mm.(0,12”~0,24”) is becoming the standard water absorbency is <0.05% on the surface and water absorbency on the bottom < 0.3% (EN-ISO 10545-3)

use of class C2 is advised to guarantee sufficient bond strength

large size tiles

EUF (European Tile Setters Federation ) divides large sized tiles in;

• XL (surface area of 1 square meter or 10 square feet)
• XXL (surface area of at least 3m or 32 square feet)

bond strength

how to obtain sufficient contact surface when installing these type of large “gres” tiles assuring sufficient bond strength to comply to standard C2 FTE S2 ?

abbreviations standard;

•C2 : improved adhesive

•F :Fast Setting 

•T :Thixotropic 

•E : Extended Working Time 

•S2 : Highly Deformable

placing

large size tiles are back buttered and inserted on a flat surface with a back and forth movement, crosswise to the adhesive grooves pressed firmly from the center towards the edges in order to flatten the adhesive grooves, minimizing the amount of air inclusions a maximum contact surface and an optimal adhesive distribution gives the optimum bond.

in most cases more water is added to make the adhesive more fluid large tiles require fewer joints and are usually finer in width than 2 mm./0,08” excess water can not escape – reducing the bond strength

improving tile adhesives

cellulose ethers and higher dosage of redispersible polymer powder (RDP dosage advised S2 is more than 5%) delay cement hydration, impact rheology and cause air entrapment allowing a possible further reduction of the bond strength

HPH-10 or XT-20 replacing the dry binder content by 10~20% improves significantly the performance of tile adhesives and - grouts

• accelerates the set
• modifies the rheology
• increases the density
• improves the bond strength
• binds excess water , autogenous drying
• reduces the stress , compensated shrinkage
• rapid and complete drying of interfacial surface
• lowers alkali

In placing natural stone the risk of stains forming on the surface is minimized

tile grouts

In order to fill the thin, fine joints used in the application of large size tiles the grout contains a lot of water impacting shrinkage, porosity, efflorescence and wear resistance binding of this excess of water guarantees a durable joint