Can a new house (8 years old) support Travertine tiles on plaster board walls?

Hi there . Many builder's fit tiles directly on plasterboard but my advice is to remove the plasterboard (where you need tiles ) and replace whit CIMENT BOARDS . Chers

Plasterboard can take about 25kg per square metre so unless you are fitting patio slabs to your wall you should be ok. If you're tiling wet areas remove the old plasterboard and replace with waterproof cement board or Wedi board. Tiles bigger than 33cm sq are considered large format and require stronger adhesive. Bal white star or a floor adhesive will do the job. PVA or SBR the plasterboard before tiling this will help adhesion. One thing if your travertine is a natural stone tile and not a reconstituted version it's not recommended for showers as by nature is porus, ok you can seal it but it's not guaranteed 100%. Hope this helps

I'm a kitchen fitter with many years experience,and sometimes when we strip out to fit a new kitchen,if the builders have fitted tiles to plasterboard,this normally results in the destruction of the walls! If the walls had been plaster skimmed, the tiles will normally Come of easily leaving the walls in better condition with little repair. But you do need to use the right tools,not a bolster chisel as this tends to dig into the board behind, I would suggest having the walls skimmed,then sealed before tiling. The weight of the tiles before the adhesive sets is transferred downwards and has little or no outward force( cantilever ) and if the plasterboard has been "dot & dabbed" to structural walls then you should have no problem .

A little bit of bad information here,heres a few dos and donts, Do not use pva, Do not have walls removed and reskimmed,this cuts down on the weight limit. Do check the tile weight per m2, Here is the tile limit weight which includes adhesive and grout , Skimmed walls 20kg per m2, Plasterboard 32 kg per m2, Cement board 40 kg per m2, So say your stone is 30 kg per m2 you would be over the top for plasterboard as you would add 4kg for adhesive and grout, If your stone is around28kg per m2 you will be fine , If board is in shower area its better to remove and fix 12mm cement board.

I totally agree with A. G . Freight tiling specialist. A lot of the other answers are totally wrong and will cause you problems.... too many people think they can tile correctly but need to leave it to the professionals who know what’s right and wrong and British Standards.DO NOT use PVA! This is a skin on top of the substrate so your tiling onto a skin not the substrate. Your tiles will lift off the substrate and cause massive problems. Use an acrylic primer that penetrates the substrate.

Hi , no question I would remove the plasterboard and install hardibacker board [ 12mm] or a wedi board 12mm, but also check the timber uprights for extra noggins as the extra weight would require this. usual requirements are 300mm fixing between centres. Also must use a fast set white flexible quality adhesive to avoid staining , then after completing would require a stain stop for protection.