How To Tile Over Plywood Subfloor

On a plywood subfloor you need either a layer of cement backer board or an underlayment membrane like custom building products wonderboard and redgard between the subfloor and tile for the thin set adhesive to achieve a good bond.

How to tile over plywood subfloor.

For this project we are using the tavy thin skin system to prepare the surface for tile. Use thinset with a higher latex content thinset is the wet base that you first trowel on the plywood to make the tile stick. Use intervening layers of two sheets of plywood. It should be fastened to the subfloor using thinset and then screwed down every 10 square.

Once the surface is completely covered cover the adhesive with the fiberglass based paper and smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles with a broad drywall knife. While tile can be laid on plywood do not install tile directly onto the plywood subfloor itself. Concrete board concrete board also called backer boardcomes in 1 4 and 1 2 thicknesses and is usually sold in 4 x 6 sheets. The plywood will expand and contract at a different rate as the tile causing cracks to develop in the grout lines or tiles over time.

Installing tile over a wood subfloor is a lot easier today than it was when i started my remodeling career. The old fashioned mud method of floating a thick mortar bed in preparation for the tile has given way to using cement backer board over a plywood subfloor.