tile
We are remodeling our kitchen in our older pier & beam house. We were looking at tile today and they said we would need to remove the existing linoleum, then put some type of cement board over the existing plywood sub-floor, then lay the tile.
Does anyone have any experience with tile in pier & beam?
If you want to ensure a perfectly straight and level corner along the entire length, then I'd suggest you build a two sided "box" to rest on the raised surface. Build it out of 1x1s, making a frame that consists of 3 long straight edges connected at perfect 90 degrees by short supports (cripples) spaced 12" on center.
Lay that box over the concrete edge, and use shims to get it perfectly level. Glue in place.
Then apply plywood to the frame and proceed with tiling as normal. (You don't need to ditra the box in this scenario, just tile to the ply)
Rough sketch showing cross section of wall/floor and stick diagram of proposed box framework:
Unless you are concerned about an asbestos material under the tile (such as old linoleum squares), I would remove any old material and start clean. If you keep building on top of the old materials, you might need to rip all your doors down to make them fit with the new floor. Conversely, you need to consider how high to make the new floor in relationship to the old floor. Last, while you may still need floor leveler, a better bet is to install a nice new clean level underlayment board such as concrete board, durarock, hardibacker, or other tile board for tile or a nice clean 1/4" sheet of plywood and paper for hardwood.
Best Answer
I have a pier-and-beam house, and the instructions are pretty much correct.
Tile will crack eventually when placed over pier-and-beam because of two related issues:
Floor joists often aren't on 12- or 16-inch centers, so they allow too much "give" when you step on the floor between the joists.
The piers are settling independently of one another based on soil conditions, and even fractional-inch movement is enough to crack grout lines over time.
So, if you really want tile, I would suggest removing the existing linoleum, then do the following: