BCM Community
Bus Discussion => Bus Topics ( click here for quick start! ) => Topic started by: cody on May 21, 2009, 12:19:08 PM
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Finally got far enough into the bus to dig out a few boxes of marble floor tile that I had gotten a good deal on last year, Bontragers had a bunch of boxes of marble and granite floor tile that needed a home and being the caring individual I try to be I decided to adopt them even tho they wanted a buck a box for them. The first thing I had to do was go and buy a diamond saw to cut it, so off we went and bought one, Menards had a good deal going on them. Yesterday seemed to be the ideal day for the project so the first pic is lining the tiles up on a sheet of plywood and trying to determine grain and patterns along with colors to try to get the tile to make some kind of sence on the floor, I figured it I layed out the pattern I wanted I could transfer it to the floor as I went and it worked great, the second pic is this morning, after the tile had had a chance to set over night, the adhesive isn't quite dry yet so I won't be able to grout the seams yet but I'm haveing fun and it's not as hard as I thought it would be, the hole for the toilet stub was easy because I was able to locate it on a seam so all I had to do was feed the tile into the saw and notch the hole out, one half on one tile and one half on the next time. As I get further along with my bathroom project I'll update this.
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Cody,
Lookin' GOOOOOD!!!! Jack
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Cody looks good but I'm a little confused. What is the first picture? Is that outside? Is that already set in thin set?
Ace
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Cody looks good but I'm a little confused. What is the first picture? Is that outside? Is that already set in thin set?
Ace
Ace,
I think you are seeing the wood grain in the sheet of plywood that the tile are laying on? Jack
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Looks good cody! What took you so long? ;D
~Paul~
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Ace, before I started, I laid out the tile on a sheet of plywood to look for grain and color patterns that I liked, the marble is only sitting on the plywood so I could arrange it the way I wanted to lay it out. Paul, I'm not very fast at any of my projects lol, what I've been doing is pretty much working my way into the bedroom of the bus so I can rip it apart and blast a hole in the floor so I can fix a bad exhaust gasket. My choices were to just move the items or to install them, I just didn't know where to move them too, I've got jamies house filled with my junk.
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I thought that's what I was looking at but it appeared as though there was thin set on the plywood! Then I saw what appeared to be grass, and I thought, well maybe he is installing the tile on a pre cut and fit board and will carry it in the bus. Then I thought, man, what a heavy weight item that will be! Then I thought, I shouldn't think, so that's why I asked! ;)
Ace
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Then I thought, I shouldn't think, so that's why I asked! ;)
Ace
I know what you mean, thinkin' gets me in trouble too! LOL Jack
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Then I thought, I shouldn't think, so that's why I asked! ;)
Ace
I know what you mean, thinkin' gets me in trouble too! LOL Jack
I know too, when I try to think Nothin' happens! ;D BK ;D
Oh yeah look'n good Cody!
Shoot b4 ya know it there will be an engine access panel in the bedroom! LOL!
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When I try to think it hurts, by the time the smoke clears from the clutch slipping I forget what I was trying to think about.
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Just a quick point here - first, the plywood floor on coaches is not the Rock of Gibralter....it flexes, moves, vibrates, and expands/contracts. Granite tiles won't, and will eventually crack if you glue them in place with something intended for
household floors.
First, the plywood floor has to be screwed down really, really well. Tiles should be glued in with an adhesive that has some
flexibility (even walking on your floor will shift it, and that is also why tiles on your floor at home might crack if the floor is
not solidly anchored.
There is a plastic subfloor material (try talking "floating floor" at Home Depot) that the tiles do bond to but it does not move
with the floor (hence the term floating floor). It provides the rigidity the tiles need to avoid being flexed by your weight on the
floor, or the normal shifting that occurs in a coach, but it is not specifically intended for this application. In household use the floor
and structure under the floor has to be strengthened to eliminate the flexing. This is done in a house by doubling up floor joists,
ading another layer of plywood which is glued in place and then screwed firmly into the floor joists with a billion screws (by the way,
if your floor at home creaks when you walk on it it's flexing, and it's likely nailed in place, not screwed)
We had this problem with a 1998 MCI 102EL3 that came from Custom Coach with the owners' choice of granite floor. Very shiny, very smooth, but very troublesome because the tiles kept cracking. I finally called in a pro - Mike Holmes of TV fame, and he puzzled over
this for awhile before suggesting a) thicker tiles and b) a floating subfloor, and maybe c) another plywood floor glued and screwed in a million places. He wasn't convinced that a tile installation on a bus was even possible, floating subfloor or no floating subfloor.
Without going into what a horrid pile of rubbish the 102EL3 was, we did all three and this reduced the problem to a couple of tiles per year. So the owner now has a nice floor in a coach that is mechanically challenged, and since he's part owner of the Tim Hortons' coffee chain I may never pay for a donut ever again.
Granite is a beautiful material for a floor, but in a coach it's a lotta hassle. There is an artifical material made from the same stuff as asphalt tiles but through a different process that looks like granite but is flexible enough to avoid cracking. I discovered this a little too late for this project
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The floor is marble lol, yep, all good points and well taken. The floor we are dealing with is extremely structually strong, the subfloor is 3/4 inch marine plywood that is glued and screwed to the metal framework of the bus, that is followed by 1/8 inch thick layer of lead for soundproofing and then a layer of 3/4 inch 11 ply baltic birch plywood, each layer is glued and screwed to each other, seems to be fairly strong, the plywood is all T&G so it fits well, in the 6 years it's been in, we've seen no adverse affects due to movement of any kind. Eagles are also known for structural integrity, far more so than MCI's, in the archives here you'll see examples of eagles driven without any skin whatsoever, just the framework and the wind lol, I drove mine home around 300 miles while watching the road pass under my feet lol, my wifes first words when she saw it were, "couldn't you have at least found one with a floor?"
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IMHO a lot of what you say is BS! Simply put! Although many above grade sub floors have flex when walked upon, using the correct underlayment AND thinset will deter any hard surface from cracking! A more simpler approach to FIXING your problem would be to use a larger tile! Less grout lines means less movement! Also another remedy is to lay your tile on a 45 degree angle! Laying across the sub floor grain will also deter cracking problems!
Your statement about creaking is the floor moving? Uh in some instances yes, but in more cases it is a nail IN the floor joist moving up and down in its own hole. A screw will stop the nail squeek! Using a zillion screws will only wear out your screw gun and cause dimples that will ultimately need floating!
I'm no expert but I have installed all types of flooring now going on 39 years!
Your TV star gets paid to look pretty and spend 30 minutes in front of a camera. I'm far from pretty but I have been known to do some good work and get paid good for it!
Again, IMHO
Ace
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I appreciate your coming in on this ace, wood, I understand fairly well, I can make a floor that will support a tank, but granite and marble is a new area for me and a little reassurance now and then goes a long way, after reading Mr Tovinmans post I questioned my insanity for a moment, I just couldn't see how my floor could possibly have much movement, it took me several months of research and talking with old friends in the conversion industry both at marathon and liberty before I felt confident enough to tackle it lol.
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As I said, the 102EL3 is not the best coach around, and Custom Coach didn't take this into account when they threw down these tiles. Tiles were 12x12.
Tightening up the floor (you really can't put too many more screws in the floor as they have to go into something) and placing it on the plastic substrate, using thicker tiles, and beefing up the floor did resolve the problem, which was what we were aiming for, since the owner of this 1.5Mil coach was getting pretty upset at his floor cracking up.
We also didn't use thinset, we used a flexible silicone based product (the floor is moving, after all, not the tiles) and so there is more
rigidity in the floor and less in the tiles themselves
I'm sure that an Eagle would be a far more stable coach than the 102EL3 will ever be, but the whole point of this is that we solved the
problem for the most part. That's not to say that some other method will work as well. My point was that the issue of movement is a particularly important thing to consider when placing tiles on a coach floor.
That is what the whole point of forums such as this are, an opportunity to trade experiences with others doing similar conversions, and alerting others to a potential issue with a particular decision they've made is part of that as well, not to mention maybe saving them from discovering these issues on their own in a more costly manner. It seems he's done that already and shouldn't have the same problems that we ended up having in a professionally-converted coach. Custom Coach obviously didn't give much thought to the floor, or perhaps didn't really
think, as many of us in the coach industry, that MCI could really build such a poor quality coach, having produced some of the best. We now know better - on both counts.
Of course, I am getting used to being criticized on these boards. It's just that they usually wait a few weeks before they vent on me, this time it was less than an hour.
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You've come to the right board then, you'll learn a lot here, we have some VERY knowledgable people, we're not just a bunch of coach drivers lol.
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I wouldn't call it criticizing. More like correcting the facts!
As for doing it in less than and hour? If you notice I was using my blackberry while at dinner. I just couldn't let what I know to be true facts over what you have stated, to be told.
As professional converters go? I wouldn't bank on them doing a million dollar job just because they have a big name with big money being spent. Go to some of the RV shows and check out the less than shotty workmanship! Most of what you pay for in spending the big bucks is cosmetic. They tend to cover up just about everything with anything they can.
Using 12 inch tile went out in the late 70's early 80's, I think and if this was a recent conversion say from the mid 90's, then they were just taking your money! One they were using too small a tile, two, they didn't know how to fix an obvious problem that THEY created. It isn't the bus, sub floor, or the material's fault. It was they who sold it and installed it by not knowing what they were doing OR working with.
One golden rule I learned a LONG time ago was, do not attempt to install a piece of material, ANY material, if you DON'T know what your doing with it, AND most importantly, if you DON'T know how to correct it IF there IS a problem. I see way too many times where people THINK they can do it themselves only because someone at HD told them it was easy. A lot of those people that work there couldn't cut it in the real world out in the field. Wonder why?
I also used to do work for a really well known company where the owners were NEVER on their knees but knew it all! I call them both "BOOK SMART" and not "FIELD SMART". I had to literally take them out many times to actually show them HOW it's done in the field to make them believers!
By the way, "Flex-Bond" would have been my choice over hardy board using even your 12 inch tile layed on a 45. I bet many many miles with no breaks!
Ace
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BINGO!!
He shows himself!
T-man, I mean, not our resident Ace.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
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lol, I'll stick with the ones here on the board that I know and trust and that have proven their expertice over time here.
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BW was I just slammed or was that compliment? ???
Ace
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lol you weren't slammed ace, not in the least.
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Compliment. You posted when I did.
tovinman is no friend of the busnut.
He has history elsewhere, his posts will continue to reveal him as of no assistance to us.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
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Cody,I have always had a problem with my marble floors cracking they have been redone 2 times.I noticed today I had 2 broke tiles.
Fwiw I am changing to bamboo flooring good luck on this one and watch the levers when you install those they will twist and crack the marble in our beloved Eagles
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Our ceramic tile has been in now for about 7 years and no cracks (I guess someone forgot to tell it that it is supposed to crack). I think the tile are about 14 or 15" square laid at a 45 degree angle (thanks again Ace).
It was installed over a layer of 1/4" Luan that was glued & screwed to the new 3/4" T&G plywood (also glued & screwed) that replaced the OEM flooring. the tile was installed using thinset that was mixed using latex admixture instead of water.
Actually, we have had one tile crack. That tile is on the bottom step in the stepwell and the electric step is attached to the bottom of this step. I think a heavy person stepping on the electric step, causes the bottom step to flex and thus cracked this tile. Jack
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Jack, my tile in the bathroom has never cracked but it has grout line and the marble doesn't good luck
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Jack, your comment really surprises me. Lauan plywood is generally used for vinyl tile that doesn't require a lot of water in the curing process, unlike thinset and grout. The problem that arises is delamination of the plies due to non-waterproof glue. The comment above about 11 ply Baltic birch also raised in my mind the question of interior glue, which is the only kind I have personally encountered with Baltic plywood, normally intedned for interior use. There is recently a supply of "waterproof" Lauan plywood, but I have not used it for a damp application. I have always used at least 4 ply 1/2" exterior plywood as tile underlayment and haven't had a problem to date. I have also had better results with mastic and smaller tile and latex modified grout for floors that are subject to flexing. FWIW and YMMV.
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I've gone my usual route with massive overkill according to libby, but hopefully it'll be ok, I used a vinyl based thinset for the adhesive and set the marble with 1/8th inch grout lines, for that I'm using an unsanded grout, again with a vinyl base. A friend that set tile for a living until his retirement from an 8 hour day a few years ago that now does the tileing for marathon kinda guided me along as I put the program together for this tile project, he recommended the use of the vinyl based products. He seemed to feel that small voids under the tile was as detrimental to the life of the tile as much as flexing or vibration would be, hopefully it'll turn out ok, I've relied on some very knowledgable people to guide me on several projects both here on this board and off the board, it's amazes me what a wonderful cataloge of resources we acquire over the years and I trust these people, just as I trust the great majority of the members here to give solid and knowledgable information but as always I'll take a great deal of information and customize it to fit into the parameters of the project that I need to address. Wow, that almost made me sound smart, I gotta show libby this post lol.
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Grout lines don't have to be "grout." A good elastic caulk, such as Polyseamseal, can be used, as American-Olean did, and may help a cracking problem. The tiles can also be set with caulk as an adhesive.
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The 11 ply that I used is a throwback to my cabinetry, it is found not only in several grades but also for several applications, an interior variety is available and more commonly found but also an exterior grade, generally the exterior grade is primarily used for the enclosures of prograde speaker systems and extremely stable, the main reason for my choice of this particular variety is the total absence of bark related fillers, the ply fillers are veneer plys or lumber core and add to the stability of the plywood, a lot fo the available plywood that is readily found at places like home depot or lowes has a basic ground bark filler that regardless of the application tends to breakdown over time, I've relied on the exterior 11 ply for cabinet interior casework, especially around any areas that could encounter moisture like sink bases or vanities, it's worked well for me over the years.
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Cody,
I'm kinda curious..............
What fun is it to do a job only once.........
Where is the joy in knowing planned obsolescence can get you another chance
to change things in the future ????
Nice work :)
Skip
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Jack, your comment really surprises me. Lauan plywood is generally used for vinyl tile that doesn't require a lot of water in the curing process, unlike thinset and grout.
We did not use water to mix the thinset or grout. We used a latex/vinyl admixture. I also forgot to add that the luan was sealed with a layer of fiberglass resin proir to installing tile. The reason for adding the layer of luan was so that the finich floor would be flush with the wood flor that is on either end of the bathroom. Jack
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Skip, I understand completely lol, my problem is a few medical inconviences that tend to make me unwanting to redo things, I want to be buried in the bus and I want it to be somewhat finished lol.
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Cody,
And if you preceed me do I need to bring the backhoe?
I can just see my bus pulling a trailer with a big backhoe on it :)
Take care
Skip
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Libby just piped up lol she said to dig a really big hole and then load the bus onto a catapult and splat, straight into the hole, I'm trying to picture that lol.
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Well, another small step done on the floor today, got the tile cleaned up and grouted the seams, seams like it turned out ok so far, now I'll let it sit for a few days to cure some more, at some point I'll seal it and buff out the tile, I'm very pleased with the color variations and some very pronounced grain patterns that the tile had, so far so good, not a crack yet and no sign of rust lol.
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Cody, that is looking really good. Keep it up.
God bless,
John
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Cody,
Nice of you to adopt those feral marble tiles, and such a lovely color. Hope my bride doesn't see this post or I'll be putting marble in the bus! LoL
Is it me, or does it seem that controversy follows you around? ;)
Matt
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Matt, it's me, controversy and me are old friends, I started life as a cranky old guy and got worse as time went by.
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Matt, it's me, controversy and me are old friends, I started life as a cranky old guy and got worse as time went by.
Gee cody, I don't remember any cranky old guy at our place? Maybe it is all in the perception or maybe Libby was keepin' under a tighter rein? Jack
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I'm afraid my crankyness reared it's ugly head this morning again, I figured while I'm redoing the bathroom floor and the toilet is out I'd rebuild it, well, I broke the vacuum breaker connection in the back and it'll cost more for the lousy part than to buy a whole new toilet at Bontragers or RV Surplus so I guess I know who I'll be calling today. Actually, this may be a mixed blessing cause I wanted a taller one anyway and did look at them.
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Cody,
You have been just fine. Controversy has "followed" you just because (like on Jim's thread) you asked a simple question. Here, well don't worry about it. I sure haven't heard a cranky old guy. You are one of our standby's on here.
And besides of anybody you would have a right to be cranky ;D ;D ;D.
God bless,
John
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Cody, I do like that tile. And I like the color variations! Remoinds me of a scene in one of the Cirque du Soleil shows where the man and the woman are doing a slow balancing thing in the marble pool.
Beautiful work Cody...give our best to Libby.
Jack
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Hi Guy's,
I'm on my 5th year now with Marble floors in my bus that I layed myself with Flexbond. "$50 a bag" Not 1 crack in the marble or the grout lines as of yet!
This was a major concern for me at the time and turned out to be the least of my worries. :D
Good Luck
Nick-