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KUIPORNG · 02-23-2007, 01:48 PM

I intend to put on a liquid membrane on the plywood floor before laying marble stones in the bathroom.

I saw two products in HD: Redguard and Blue Seal for that purpose.

they both claim for waterproofing...

However, Blue Seal is half the price of Redguard...

Anyone can comment on which is the product to use for this purpose?

Thanks

HJ1 · 02-23-2007, 02:39 PM

Hold up here. Are you saying you will be putting the marble right on top of the plywood, no sheet membrane, no cement board?

KUIPORNG · 02-23-2007, 02:43 PM

my situation is I have a drycore type subflooring against concrete basement floor... so the plywood is very steady, no movement...

so I guess I am ok to put marble directly on the plywood... Right?

I still have time ... I haven't done anything yet... except pour one can of SLC to fill an unlevel spot....

and I intend to use Regguard or Blue Seal as sheet/liquid membrane...

HJ1 · 02-23-2007, 03:03 PM

I am not familiar with this dricore system but I just looked at their website. Their website says "Ideal for carpet or floating floors such as laminate or floating engineered hardwood flooring."

There installation instructions say the following

Quote:

Tile - DRIcore is designed to act as a floating subfloor. It is not recommended that ceramic tile be directly attached to DRIcore as the movement of the floating subfloor will cause tile and grout lines to crack.
In the case of a ceramic installation, prepare concrete floor by applying liquid concrete leveling compound to the concrete floor surface to eliminate concrete floor height variances. Fasten each DRIcore panel with four, flat head and countersunk, concrete fasteners to the permanent concrete floor to prevent movement or shifting of the finished ceramic tile floor. Dab silicone in the fastener openings to seal these holes.
DRIcore panels must lay perfectly flat without bounce or deflection. Install a ¼” underlayment or ½” cement board suitable for ceramic tile installations on top of DRIcore. Follow the underlayment manufacturer’s installation guidelines for fastening to a subfloor.
Please note that we also do not recommend gluing underlayments or other wood flooring materials to DRIcore.

It sounds to me that they want you to use a layer of plywood, then and acceptable underlayment for tile such as cement board or a sheet membrane like ditra. Did you follow the above instructions for installing the dricore?

KUIPORNG · 02-23-2007, 03:07 PM

I didn't use the product dricore,it is way too expensive, instead I used somthing similar... I purchase those thick plastic, on top put pine wood (bathroom) or OSB board (elsewhere)...

for the bathroom I tapcon everywhere ensuring the plywood don't move a bit...

so I think in terms of floor movement I am good....

HJ1 · 02-23-2007, 03:07 PM

And I also noticing as I re-read this info that thes instructions are for ceramic tile. You are installing natural stone. I would contact dricore to find out if you can do this, and if so exactly what you need to do.

KUIPORNG · 02-23-2007, 03:10 PM

the product I used is not Dricore, Dricore is floating... mine is not... actually I found the website what I used:

http://www.systemplaton.com/

HJ1 · 02-23-2007, 03:25 PM

I am not familiar with this product. I would however use a sheet membrane like ditra or use cement board over the plywood, instead of redgard. It sounds like this is already a waterproofing system so the redgard makes no sense anyway. Perhaps someone else here has some experience with this stuff.

KUIPORNG · 02-23-2007, 03:33 PM

redguard try to protect the plywood under the tiles from rotting.... ditra is good but it increase height of the flooring which make it not flush with outside bathroom flooring which I do not like...

HJ1 · 02-24-2007, 05:37 PM

Ditra will isolate the movement of the plywood substrate from the tile much better than redgard will. The height is minimal. If you are going to install tile, you have to expect that the height will be a little different. Not the end of the world.

I hope somebody else chimes in here as well.

KUIPORNG · 02-26-2007, 09:53 AM

in the weekend after thinking it over and over again... and this redguard is so expensive anyway.... not too much different than ditel....

anyhow... after installation... I agree, the height is very minimum...

Thanks...

**Floorwizard** · 03-01-2007, 12:09 AM

installers swear by redguard and ditra both.

Brik · 03-05-2007, 03:43 PM

Can I ask a question? Why cant you just use thinset on your concrete floor? Why all this complicated subfloor stuff? I assume some major cracking or heaving of the concrete?

KUIPORNG · 03-05-2007, 03:51 PM

That is a good question... and the answer is... I didn't plan ahead when doing the dricore stuff... I thought keeping the whole basement same subflooring will be nice...

but now that it is finished (marbling)... I don't think it is too bad... the marble is strong and stable and I got good peace of mind that my flooring is really isolated from the concrete...

kind of getting all the goodies: dricore stuff and marble stuff....