Why
You
Need
Membranes
Under
Ceramic
Tile
To protect a
tile job from
water and
building
movement,
think
membranes!
by
STEVE
THOMPSON
In the past five years, tile has become
quite popular in New England and with
that popularity has come a host of
installation problems. Aside from
sloppy workmanship, the two major
problems we see stem from expansion
and contraction of substrates and the
lack of waterproofing.
In more temperate parts of the country,
frost heaves and seasonal building
movement are less of a problem. But
here in New England, those forces can
wreck a tile job quickly. To minimize
these problems, we rely heavily on
membranes.
Membranes have always been part of
the tile trade. The ancient Egyptians
used melted lumps of crude oil or
asphalt to waterproof surfaces covered
with tile. And for