Quarry tiles over earth

[ShelleyM]

Hi

We are currently renovating a 200 yr old cottage , the living room is quarry tile over earth with a number of concrete tracks across it servicing radiators and heating etc we would like to try and restore the floor but have no idea what to do with the tracks which are level with the tiles and obviously have plumbing pipes embedded within them not sure to what depth. Can anyone suggest a remedy? if we can’t restore then can you suggest what else we can do ,our preference would be to put a hardwood floor over the top but we realise this is a breathable system so not sure if this is an option? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Toby Newell]

Hi

We are currently renovating a 200 yr old cottage , the living room is quarry tile over earth with a number of concrete tracks across it servicing radiators and heating etc we would like to try and restore the floor but have no idea what to do with the tracks which are level with the tiles and obviously have plumbing pipes embedded within them not sure to what depth. Can anyone suggest a remedy? if we can’t restore then can you suggest what else we can do ,our preference would be to put a hardwood floor over the top but we realise this is a breathable system so not sure if this is an option? Any advice would be greatly appreciated View attachment 11750View attachment 11751View attachment 11752

Pretty cottage, that is very unfortunate, work looks recent, I hope they didn't use copper pipes for the radiator.

Burying the pipes like this is bad practice.

Your best bet is to contact a plumber to quote for removing and surface routing the pipework.

I have just declined a potentially very large job to fit a wooden floor in a large 17thC manor house here in Surrey, over quarry tiles.

I would 100% not advise it.

To protect the wooden floor you would need to fit a DPM, this will force all moisture up through the walls.

You could fit engineered wood nailed to battens (DPM under battens but leaving rest of floor uncovered) and fit vents, but this isn't ideal.

Depends on your water table, whether your house has a contiguous DPC etc, it could be ok but personally I would never take the risk.

 

[ShelleyM]

Pretty cottage, that is very unfortunate, work looks recent, I hope they didn't use copper pipes for the radiator.

Burying the pipes like this is bad practice.

Your best bet is to contact a plumber to quote for removing and surface routing the pipework.

I have just declined a potentially very large job to fit a wooden floor in a large 17thC manor house here in Surrey, over quarry tiles.

I would 100% not advise it.

To protect the wooden floor you would need to fit a DPM, this will force all moisture up through the walls.

You could fit engineered wood nailed to battens (DPM under battens but leaving rest of floor uncovered) and fit vents, but this isn't ideal.

Depends on your water table, whether your house has a contiguous DPC etc, it could be ok but personally I would never take the risk.

Hi Toby

Thanks for your reply , no the previous tracks were dug up and the old copper pipes were removed and replaced with new pvc pipework and the tracks refilled. Unfortunately this all occurred pretty early in the build before we understood the ramifications of all of this . So please excuse my naivety but is it possible to just remove enough concrete from the tracks to allow new quarry tiles to be laid as opposed to digging the whole lot up and relaying the pipes. I’m not sure what you mean by surface laying ?

 

[ShelleyM]

And am I correct in saying you can’t tile over the top of quarry tiles?

 

[Toby Newell]

First of all I am not a fan of plastic pipe, especially for hot feeds, the compression fittings have a butyl rubber seal which will perish and leak, there will be an epidemic in 20 years time, but I digress.

Laying pipes in concrete generally is a bad idea as it's hard to alter them. Copper pipes can corrode by galvanic action if the concrete is contaminated with iron, even small filings. Plastic is OK but laying concrete tracks isn't best practice for old homes, surface fitting is.

Surface fitting is what it says, laying the pipes on the surface, around the walls, either exposed or boxed in. I rarely see pipes laid into the floor like this.

Can you fit quarry tiles over the pipes? Depends how deep they are, I suspect not otherwise why didn't the plumber do that already?

If you clean any glaze / impregnator from the quarry tiles you can tile over them, you might need to to add an adhesion promoter. The new tiles would need to be breathable, modern tile adhesives will be less breathable than traditional lime based mortar.

The gold standard for breathability is to remove the tiles, backfill with limecrete and fit sandstone.

 

[Toby Newell]

And may I just say again how sad it is that a lazy plumber or nonchalant home owner decided to smash up the original quarry tiles and encaustic tiles and ruined two potentially lovely looking and functional floors. Looks like the sparky ran his earth wire through there as well, maybe its the camera perspective but your copperwork looks awfully thin.

 

[Lacan07]

Hi Toby

Thanks for your reply , no the previous tracks were dug up and the old copper pipes were removed and replaced with new pvc pipework and the tracks refilled. Unfortunately this all occurred pretty early in the build before we understood the ramifications of all of this . So please excuse my naivety but is it possible to just remove enough concrete from the tracks to allow new quarry tiles to be laid as opposed to digging the whole lot up and relaying the pipes. I’m not sure what you mean by surface laying ?

Some people (like me) don't like PVC pipe where they can't see it, only the joints though. I hope they didn't concrete over any joints.

 

[ShelleyM]

Thanks again Toby this is the pipework in the kitchen I’m assuming this is the same pipework in the living room . I wish I’d known all this before the original pipe work was tracked and the plumber used the same method obviously. Sorry to ask you one more question so if I use some form of breathable tile adhesive and breathable tiles and grout I could just tile over the top of the existing quarry tiles and I won’t have a damp issue out to the walls is that correct?

Some people (like me) don't like PVC pipe where they can't see it, only the joints though. I hope they didn't concrete over any joints.

I’ve no idea if they have tbh , I have no experience of building renovating especially this type of house and am just relying on the builder, hence why I found this site and seeking advice. I really want to restore the floor to its original state but I am on a very tight budget so I’m trying my best to do what I can with limited funds I’m afraid

 

[Toby Newell]

Some people (like me) don't like PVC pipe where they can't see it, only the joints though. I hope they didn't concrete over any joints.

Total complete and utter madness.

I still remember my first semester reading materials engineering, modern concrete has a very limited lifespan, who knew? I found that fascinating, I always thought it was as long lasting as stone. The thing that kills concrete is chlorine ion contamination and water ingress. The greatest issue is porosity, hense the use of sonic vibrators when pouring large sections.

RAAC??? Lets bubble air into concrete???

Plastic piping is exactly like that for me. You dont have to have studied polymers or engineering to realise that ALL rubber, natural latex, butyl or mixture thereof oxidise and perish and this is exponentially increased when exposed to either heat or UV light. Anyone who has owned a car, boat or any other equipment or even an elastic band knows this, tyres have expiry dates on them.

ALL plastic pipes with claw / butyl rubber seals will fail, some of low pressure cold feeds might last a few decades but the hot feeds? I give them 25-30 years max.

Theres no accelerated test for this lol either. Utter nuts. Saw a plumber fit plastic push fits to chromed tails, the claws didnt bite into the hard chrome, shortly after they leaked, destroying a 100sqm parquet floor I just sanded under half a foot of water. Humans are weird.

 

[Toby Newell]

Thanks again Toby this is the pipework in the kitchen I’m assuming this is the same pipework in the living room . I wish I’d known all this before the original pipe work was tracked and the plumber used the same method obviously. Sorry to ask you one more question so if I use some form of breathable tile adhesive and breathable tiles and grout I could just tile over the top of the existing quarry tiles and I won’t have a damp issue out to the walls is that correct?

I’ve no idea if they have tbh , I have no experience of building renovating especially this type of house and am just relying on the builder, hence why I found this site and seeking advice. I really want to restore the floor to its original state but I am on a very tight budget so I’m trying my best to do what I can with limited funds I’m afraid

View attachment 11753

Holy mother of God.

Now Im not a plumber and they are my least favourite work persons but working on hundreds of sites you get the gist.

From first principles if it looks like a dogs breakfast, it probably is, that. Looks. gnnnnnnnnnnnn. I mean, they have buried it using protective sheathing so thats good, but did they really need ALL those joints? Sorry, it could be perfectly fine but that does not look great. (Copper to plastic to copper to ballofix???)

In fairness it looks like their clips are in line and all at roughly the same height, so that's a good sign and yes, these things matter because they allude to what level of care has been taken. When I worked as an electricians mate we had to straighten the wires over a hammer and line up our clips, even in the cupboard where they wouldnt be seen. Good work is often neat.

Yes, porous unsealed (unglazed, you can seal them) tiles will be breathable, less breathable than before as there will be more material for the moisture to wick through. Not sure about a breathable adhesive, lime based mortars arent terribly strong, you will need to prep the tiles and they look super unlevel so you may need a very thick bed or to screed beforehand.

Whatever you put over will reduce the breathability but better than putting wood over a plastic / liquid dpm.

And as far as reinstating the floors, that isnt really possible without removing the pipework and surface running it so would be very expensive. If you don't already have a damp issue tiling over them (with a porous tile) will probably be ok, I don't know about breathable adhesives, you would have to research these. You can seal the tiles afterwards, this is still breathable, just use a traditional impregnator and sealer, I use Lithofin, they are the professional market leaders, call them up and they can advise. Don't use a film forming acrylic finish like their multifinish.

 

[Lacan07]

Total complete and utter madness.

I still remember my first semester reading materials engineering, modern concrete has a very limited lifespan, who knew? I found that fascinating, I always thought it was as long lasting as stone. The thing that kills concrete is chlorine ion contamination and water ingress. The greatest issue is porosity, hense the use of sonic vibrators when pouring large sections.

RAAC??? Lets bubble air into concrete???

Plastic piping is exactly like that for me. You dont have to have studied polymers or engineering to realise that ALL rubber, natural latex, butyl or mixture thereof oxidise and perish and this is exponentially increased when exposed to either heat or UV light. Anyone who has owned a car, boat or any other equipment or even an elastic band knows this, tyres have expiry dates on them.

ALL plastic pipes with claw / butyl rubber seals will fail, some of low pressure cold feeds might last a few decades but the hot feeds? I give them 25-30 years max.

Theres no accelerated test for this lol either. Utter nuts. Saw a plumber fit plastic push fits to chromed tails, the claws didnt bite into the hard chrome, shortly after they leaked, destroying a 100sqm parquet floor I just sanded under half a foot of water. Humans are weird.

I deal with 1/4" and 3/4" poly pipe for work installing boilers and water coolers. We have over 60 units in a well known London Museum, last month we had some 1/4" get so brittle I could just snap it with my fingers, caused a minor leak. The pipe was about 10 years old and had been exposed to sunlight as the unit was below a huge glass atrium. I've seen this happen a number of times.

I decided to plumb with copper at home, the temptation to plumb with PVC was strong but it comes with a different set of problems and once you learn to solder copper its pretty easy.

 

[Lacan07]

Thanks again Toby this is the pipework in the kitchen I’m assuming this is the same pipework in the living room . I wish I’d known all this before the original pipe work was tracked and the plumber used the same method obviously. Sorry to ask you one more question so if I use some form of breathable tile adhesive and breathable tiles and grout I could just tile over the top of the existing quarry tiles and I won’t have a damp issue out to the walls is that correct?

I’ve no idea if they have tbh , I have no experience of building renovating especially this type of house and am just relying on the builder, hence why I found this site and seeking advice. I really want to restore the floor to its original state but I am on a very tight budget so I’m trying my best to do what I can with limited funds I’m afraid

View attachment 11753

Well that does look like a bit of a dogs diner but to be fair plastic pipe often looks a bit messy unless your working from a manifold. Just keep an eye on it, those joints should be fairly easy to replace if one of them starts weeping. I hope they used inserts when connecting plastic pipe to those compression fittings.

 

[ShelleyM]

Well that does look like a bit of a dogs diner but to be fair plastic pipe often looks a bit messy unless your working from a manifold. Just keep an eye on it, those joints should be fairly easy to replace if one of them starts weeping. I hope they used inserts when connecting plastic pipe to those compression fittings.

Ok thank you will do

 

[ShelleyM]

Ok thank you will do

 

[ShelleyM]

This is some of the rest of the plumbing work

 

[Lacan07]

This is some of the rest of the plumbing work

Bathroom and kitchen I guess, still awaiting 2nd fix?

Your floor situation is a tricky one, the key question is how much moisture, if any, is your original tile floor producing. Have you any obvious signs of damp? Not all old houses present issues and some people can get a bit bogged down when they've done the research and are keen to do the right thing. If there's no obvious signs of issues I would be tempted to proceed with the cheapest laminate floor system you can get and kit out 1 room and then monitor for a while.

To retain the original floor perhaps you could chase out the concrete to the required depth and replace with some nice, similar, aged tiles. This would obviously be a job for yourself, it might take some time and be a bit of a faff, but you'll be under no time restriction and you'll gradually get quicker with practice. Chase to the required depth and use mortar, screed, etc to get level. If the original tiles are already a bit uneven then even better, part of the charm of an old house is the imperfections.

 

[Toby Newell]

Bathroom and kitchen I guess, still awaiting 2nd fix?

Your floor situation is a tricky one, the key question is how much moisture, if any, is your original tile floor producing. Have you any obvious signs of damp? Not all old houses present issues and some people can get a bit bogged down when they've done the research and are keen to do the right thing. If there's no obvious signs of issues I would be tempted to proceed with the cheapest laminate floor system you can get and kit out 1 room and then monitor for a while.

To retain the original floor perhaps you could chase out the concrete to the required depth and replace with some nice, similar, aged tiles. This would obviously be a job for yourself, it might take some time and be a bit of a faff, but you'll be under no time restriction and you'll gradually get quicker with practice. Chase to the required depth and use mortar, screed, etc to get level. If the original tiles are already a bit uneven then even better, part of the charm of an old house is the imperfections.

The issue is Paul the need for a DPM to protect the laminate, no DPM possible bust laminate DPM fitted possible moisture issues.

 

[Toby Newell]

This is some of the rest of the plumbing work

Actually looks quite decent, just not a fan of multiple joints of dissimilar materials.

 

[ShelleyM]

Bathroom and kitchen I guess, still awaiting 2nd fix?

Your floor situation is a tricky one, the key question is how much moisture, if any, is your original tile floor producing. Have you any obvious signs of damp? Not all old houses present issues and some people can get a bit bogged down when they've done the research and are keen to do the right thing. If there's no obvious signs of issues I would be tempted to proceed with the cheapest laminate floor system you can get and kit out 1 room and then monitor for a while.

To retain the original floor perhaps you could chase out the concrete to the required depth and replace with some nice, similar, aged tiles. This would obviously be a job for yourself, it might take some time and be a bit of a faff, but you'll be under no time restriction and you'll gradually get quicker with practice. Chase to the required depth and use mortar, screed, etc to get level. If the original tiles are already a bit uneven then even better, part of the charm of an old house is the imperfections.

Thanks yes this is only first fix , still waiting for electrics first fix then plastering etc . I don’t appear to have any obvious damp issues in the living room with the quarry tiles . In fact there was a carpet down there with regular underlay for probably 17 years and when I removed it the underlay was still in pretty good condition no signs of rot etc the walls don’t have any obvious signs of damp eg in the photos thie white painted walls were last painted approx 10 years ago. There is some signs of damp in the hall on the walls in the corner beside the doorway but this is penetration damp., still not sure if this was caused by a dislodged gutter downpipe joint or it’s coming in via a gap maybe in mortar etc the walls are a mixture of sandstone , stone, brick rubble etc again not sure if I should try and seal the sandstone or do I repoint with lime mortar etc. just want to thank you for taking the time to reply to me it has been very useful as it’s difficult as a beginner navigating through all the information to determine what’s applicable or not . One beginner question what do you mean by ‘Chase’ is that chiselling through the mortar ?

 

[ShelleyM]

Bathroom and kitchen I guess, still awaiting 2nd fix?

Your floor situation is a tricky one, the key question is how much moisture, if any, is your original tile floor producing. Have you any obvious signs of damp? Not all old houses present issues and some people can get a bit bogged down when they've done the research and are keen to do the right thing. If there's no obvious signs of issues I would be tempted to proceed with the cheapest laminate floor system you can get and kit out 1 room and then monitor for a while.

To retain the original floor perhaps you could chase out the concrete to the required depth and replace with some nice, similar, aged tiles. This would obviously be a job for yourself, it might take some time and be a bit of a faff, but you'll be under no time restriction and you'll gradually get quicker with practice. Chase to the required depth and use mortar, screed, etc to get level. If the original tiles are already a bit uneven then even better, part of the charm of an old house is the imperfections.

Thanks yes this is only first fix , still waiting for electrics first fix then plastering etc . I don’t appear to have any obvious damp issues in the living room with the quarry tiles . In fact there was a carpet down there with regular underlay for probably 17 years and when I removed it the underlay was still in pretty good condition no signs of rot etc the walls don’t have any obvious signs of damp eg in the photos thie white painted walls were last painted approx 10 years ago. There is some signs of damp in the hall on the walls in the corner beside the doorway but this is penetration damp., still not sure if this was caused by a dislodged gutter downpipe joint or it’s coming in via a gap maybe in mortar etc the walls are a mixture of sandstone , stone, brick rubble etc again not sure if I should try and seal the sandstone or do I repoint with lime mortar etc. just want to thank you for taking the time to reply to me it has been very useful as it’s difficult as a beginner navigating through all the information to determine what’s applicable or not . One beginner question what do you mean by ‘Chase’ is that chiselling through the mortar