Plywood underneath tiles

[Polly28]

Hi, I would like to tile my bathroom floor which is currently plywood. All tiling guidlines say that a wooden floor should be covered with plywood or chipboard before tiling to any prevent cracks forming. As my floor is already plywood do I need to cover this with another layer of plywood before tiling or should I just tile straight onto the floor?

Thanks

P

[Rich]

Hi Polly

This can depend on your preference, because in any "wet rooms" ideally you would want to use "Marine grade plywood" which wont fall to bits if it gets wet like regular plywood does.

Normal plywood, when it gets wet, it distorts, swells up and generally lose's its shape, so "could" affect your floor if the grouting isnt totally watertight and perfect, right up to the walls.

Marine grade plywood doesnt do this, but it is about twice the price of normal plywood.

You can of course just tile straight onto your exisiting plywood floor without any problems, just so long as its done really well and is watertight.

I tiled straight onto normal plywood flooring in my bathroom, but one big thing I REALLY regret is not installing underfloor heating in the bathroom..

I'd never do a tiled floor again without underfloor heating, its fairly cheap too, but soooo nice, and soo much cheaper than central heating at around 2pence p/hour to run. Seriously regret not putting it everywhere in our house and scrapping all the radiators and pipe work..