bouncy kitchen floor, will grout crack? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

kmd · 01-26-2007, 04:08 PM

I am planning on having a tike floor installed in my kitchen, my house is 27' wide with a main beam going down the center in the crawl. The joists are 2"*10", so the span is 13.5' on each side of the header. If you jump in the middle of the floor, the floor will slightly bounch. My question is should I go in the crawl and add two more headers to stiffen the floor up before I have a tile floor installed in the kitchen? The current floor is vinyl. I would hate to spend a ton of money on a new floor and have it crack at the seams.
Thanks

rservices · 01-26-2007, 04:35 PM

yes your grout WILL crack, If you go to John Bridges tile forum you could get a mathamatical formula to see what would be good, and good sugestions on how to fix. thoses guys are great.
But depending on what your able to do to correct the bounceing you may not be able to tile at all.
check out the tile fourm

Boogga · 01-26-2007, 04:43 PM

Yes, ditto as above. When you have two types of materials behaving differently, you'll get this type of problem - Cracking!

MattCoops · 01-26-2007, 10:23 PM

I believe the joists should be no more than 18" on center to have right deflection.
I don't have TCA handbook in front of me though. Consult that.
If you don't mind the crawl down under, it wouldn't hurt to add extra joists.
What do you have as a subfloor? It may be thin, and/or weak. Probably wet if you have vinyl. Take care of water damage prior to tile.

I personally don't like OSB as subfloor. Prefer 3/4" oak or maple ply and then trowel thin set and screw off 1/4" cement backboard.
Then tile design.