To tile or not?

[michael]

I have a small room, too small for a bedroom, and currently used as a storage room. My future plans are to turn this into a laundry room i.e. with sink, washing machine, tumble dryer, ironing facilities etc. and ideally I would like to tile all or part of the walls with those glazed brick sized tiles. The thing is, this room is a ground floor room on the corner of the building so two of its walls are external. My question is: If modern plastic paints prevent walls from breathing then would applying glazed ceramic tiles to the inside face of an external wall be equally as bad if not worse?

 

[agbagb]

Yes. the tiles with waterproof grout would not be breathable. But that's no bad thing in a laundry room where the humity would be high at times. I would only worry if the walls were not breathable externally. I would add a humidistat controled extractor and think about how the backs of any fitted cupboards against the external wall would be ventilated / insulated to prevent colds spots where there's no air flow.

(I've made the asumption that the tumble drier would be externally vented)

The ceiling would also need thinking about to avoid humid air causing problems above.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Agree with the above comments. For what it's worth, we've a tiled bathroom with the tiles up against 2 external walls (east facing). The tiles have been there nearly 30 years and are going strong. I do wonder what I'll find when I come to take them off, but the room is very well ventilated and the wind blows wildly up here pretty frequently, so it isn't a damp house, or a damp county. I think I'd hesitate to fully tile a room if it was a problem wall (like one of our partially sunk walls - or a wall that took the prevailing weather from the south-east.)

 

[michael]

If I keep the tumble drier that I have now (a ten year old machine in perfect working order) then it will be (currently is) a condenser dryer. It certainly warms the room up but it doesn’t seem to create a great deal of humidity having said that, a humidistat controlled extractor, as suggested would certainly be a good idea. I wonder also if I could get away with a ‘non waterproof’ grout/adhesive to allow a small degree of breathability between the tiles? What did the Victorians use to fix /grout their tiles, those lovely green ones often seen in the basement corridors/kitchens of large stately homes as well as subterranean public conveniences?

 

[plasticpigeon]

I don't know what they used, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was cement. I think breathable glazed tiling is an oxymoron!

 

[andrew gayton]

A SAP test would tell you if the walling in question would suffer from interstitial condensation if you were to apply the tiling.

 

[Feltwell]

For what a tumble dryer costs, I'd get a vented one. A condenser model must put some vapour into the room.

 

[88v8]

For what a tumble dryer costs, I'd get a vented one. A condenser model must put some vapour into the room.

Yes. Every single drop of moisture that it extracts. A sort of mould creation scheme.

Ivor

 

[LadyArowana]

For what a tumble dryer costs, I'd get a vented one. A condenser model must put some vapour into the room.

Yes. Every single drop of moisture that it extracts. A sort of mould creation scheme.

Ivor

I have to disagree, I have a Miele one and all it produces is water which goes out of a pipe directly into the drain. Of course it's too hot here to be bothered about condensation, but even in London my dryer doesn't cause any issues at all.

 

[agbagb]

Breathable grout, would need breathable tile adhesive as well. It might be possible with Lime? But could be undesireable as moisture would get in and behind then have very little surface area to evaporate off so become a wick that keeps the wall damp.

Tip: wax on grout keeps it looking better for longer and easier to clean of mould that does form as it can't get in to the surface.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I'm still a bit sceptical about how "breathable" interior surfaces need to be. I would hope that water vapour from inside a house would escape via ventilation and not through the masonry. I can see how a permeable inside surface can act as a kind of moisture buffer, and prevent condensation.

Outside surfaces I understand, as old bricks are porous and it is good if water can escape via the mortar joints as well as the brick surface. I built an interior wall using NHL 3.5 and didn't brush the mortar joints, I just left them with a troweled finish (a bit messy but the wall was to be plastered). When I came to damp the wall before plastering it was obvious that the bricks absorbed water very readily, but the mortar joints didn't and I saw water running down them. I'm sure part of this was due to the troweled finish but also due to the use of NHL, which I'm beginning to think is not so different from cement.

 

[andrew gayton]

if you are using glazed tiles you might as well use non-permeable grouts and adhesives. Using lime here will achieve a big fat zero. If worried about interstitial condensation, batten off, ply, vent, then tile - as per wainscott boarding (sort of)

 

[Sonyaclegg]

Agbagb,

How to apply wax? Run a candle along joint or paint on a liquid form?

sonya

 

[agbagb]

Agb's missus

Hi Sonya, he says furniture polish wax should do the trick. Or rubbing a candle should work too!

 

[88v8]

For what a tumble dryer costs, I'd get a vented one. A condenser model must put some vapour into the room.

Yes. Every single drop of moisture that it extracts. A sort of mould creation scheme.

Ivor

I have to disagree, I have a Miele one and all it produces is water which goes out of a pipe directly into the drain. Of course it's too hot here to be bothered about condensation, but even in London my dryer doesn't cause any issues at all.

Aha. Well, Miele is top of the tree.
So that's a feature to look for. I wonder if all tumble-dryers are like that?

Ivor