Roof insulating tiles as floor tiles

[Wils]

We have an old Languedoc farmouse (Mas) where recently the terracota tiles originally used for insulation (called parafoi)? have been removed, we now want to lay these on the kitchen floor. My question, can these be laid with tile colle or does it need anything more substancial. The floor is new concrete, sound and dry. After laying these tiles we plan to varnish them as protection, good idea? 

[raindog]

[quote user="Wils"]We have an old Languedoc farmouse (Mas) where recently the terracota tiles originally used for insulation (called parafoi)? have been removed, we now want to lay these on the kitchen floor. My question, can these be laid with tile colle or does it need anything more substancial. The floor is new concrete, sound and dry. After laying these tiles we plan to varnish them as protection, good idea? [/quote]

You will have to lay them with a strong sand/cement mix. Parfeuille are uneven, being 'hand' made - everyone is different - and ordinary tile cement won't be thick enough to take up these inequalities. When I did mine I coated the cement floor with a liquid 'cement glue' first for maximum addhesion.

For the finish, our neighbours' 'stopped' theirs with linseed oil and then used polish - bloody hard work though.

Hope this helps.

[Hoddy]

I can definitely recommend the linseed oil finish. Don't be tempted to put too much on at one go; it's better to do several thin layers rather than fewer thick ones.

Hoddy

[Richard & Tracy]

I am still in the UK so don't know these tiles but, being a professional wall and floor tiler, in principal the following might help you. Some floor tile adhesives can go as thick as 25mm. A product called Weber Stoneset thick bed adhesive would do. Its made by Weber Saint Gobain so presumably its available in France. You need to use a floor trowel with thick wide ribs to achieve a solid bed of adhesive under the tiles. Any voids could lead to cracking. I dont know the variations in thickness of your tiles but you should sort them into, say, 3 thicknesses and lay the thickest ones first so you can bed out the thinner ones as you go to make sure you dont get any lippage. Every now and again lift a tile you have just laid to check you are getting sufficient coverage of adhesive. Bear in mind that terracotta is porous so you would need to apply something as a finish, probably before you grout. The old fashioned way is linseed oil as above. These days, most people go for a modern sealer. These can be either an impregnating type which is absorbed into the tile, or a topical(surface) type. The second type could alter the appearance(colour, shininess) and this might be important to you. Also, because it sits on the surface, it will wear and so will require re-doing every few years, depending on traffic. A good quality penetrating sealer can last 10 years or more. The purpose of a sealer is to give you a reaction time - ie clean up the spillage or mark, not to prevent stains ever happening. If I was doing this job the sequence would be - wash, sort, fix, seal, grout, seal, admre!

Hope that was of some assistance.

[Gemonimo]

Wills.... If you intend putting linseed oil on you tiles as a finish, the linseed oil must be diluted 50/50 with turps (terebentine).  If the tiles are new, you will end up putting on a minimum of a dozen coats as each coat must be absorbed before the next one goes on.  You'll see when it's getting to the point when no more can be absorbed.  At this point, wipe off all the excess so that the whole floor looks a bit dull.  Next comes the hard(er) part.  You will need to coat the tiles with beeswax (it's liquid and comes in a tin from all supermarkets) - just a film and wait for it to dry.  Then start POLISHING!!!!

If you intend going this route, the best investment of our life will be an electric floor polisher.  The beeswax will need to be repeated a few times to build up a shine and make a barrier for spills etc, but mon dieu, ça vaut le coup.  I've been polishing my girondin tiles and those of my friends for twenty years and my kids think I'm obsessive (ok, I am) but with sealers, you just don't get the 'depth' of colour.  If you  coat your floor with those  liquid  (opaque) polishes, you will have to renew them regularly after having stripped the  old lot off  with an amonia based product and you will be ankle deep in slime - I kid you not. Just for the record, if you are jointing the tiles with cement, be really fussy about getting the excess off before it dries.  To remove excess cement requires a dilution of hydrochloric acid and is a real pain.  Hope this helps.  Jen