Quick question regarding tiling and a SLIGHTLY unlevel floor

J187 · 10-10-2012, 09:20 PM

I am about to tile a very small area - 25sq ft. Concrete subfloor. When I did my dry layout, I noticed there are a couple areas where the floor is very slightly unlevel - I only notice this by pushing on the tiles, they wobble ever so slightly, this did not really show up when I slid the level around. It would kill me to buy $50 worth of self leveling compound with primer for such a small project. Is there any tolerance at all that will be made up by thinset? Enough to safely compensate for the slight difference? The problem with using something like a henry featheredge or similar is that even the unevenness is slight, it appears to be a high spot, not a low one, so it wouldn't really be very easy to level off with anything but a self leveler I would think.

Edit - sorry, just realized I didn't get this all the way into the "tiling" subforum. My bad.

JazMan · 10-10-2012, 09:37 PM

Hi,

If you've got a few small high spots you should grind them down. Otherwise as you said you have to raise the rest of the floor. But, if your stressing that it's only "slight", then if slight to you is about 1/16" in 12", you should be OK.

What size tiles and how wide a grout joint are you planning? Is it regular tiles with slightly curved edges or rectified?

Jaz

J187 · 10-10-2012, 09:46 PM

Thanks. They are 12" tiles. Not rectified. Grout line is 3/16... and yes, 1/16 in 12 is seriously what we are talking here. Also, the surface before was tiled as well. I tore up some ugly 8" tiles with gigantic grout spacing, cream colored tile with brown grout :facepalm: - still, point being, the original tiles did not seem unlevel at all - in fact, I toyed with going right over them for a while before deciding to go this route.

J187 · 10-13-2012, 11:17 AM

If I did decide use the self leveler how would you go about putting a dam in front of the carpet area to pour it?