A friend of mine picked me up from the airport the other day, and the conversation eventually ended up about flooring. Imagine that. It seems like every conversation I end up in turns to flooring at some point or another
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Before I knew Ken, I guess he bought and installed some travertine on his own which is no surprise because he seems like a real do-it-yourselfer. Prior military myself, like Ken, I can say confidently that most of us are the same way, and we like to have straight answers as well, which is why we research the devil out of something.
In Ken’s case, he definitely sought advice, but the problem came when his advice was incorrect. My question is how can you know the advice is correct if you have no basis from which to judge it? In other words, if you are a complete novice, how do you know the person giving you the advice is any more knowledgeable?
Ken’s story was just fine, and it sounded like he did a great job. He said he lucked out by finding a guy who knew everything about tile installation at Home Depot or Lowes. He even told him how to decrease sag in the thin set by adding Styrofoam insulation beads to the mix. WHAT??????? What a great way to void your warranty and eliminate the longevity of the installation! My gosh, you may as well install it using Elmer’s Glue or construction adhesive.
Here’s the scoop. You do not use thin set to install travertine (a natural stone) in the first place. Thin set is just that—it is thin set! When you set stone, you have to use a medium bed mortar, or stone setting materials. Come on people. You big box guys give me a ton of work; unfortunately, it is always cleaning up your messes and bad advice. Thin set mortar is used under ceramic and porcelain where thinner layers of mortar are required because the weight of the tile is nominal compared to stone. When setting stone, you have to have a mortar that does not sag; otherwise, you end up having major difficulties as you move along keeping them level.
Adding Styrofoam beads to a mortar, against the manufacturer’s directions, does nothing but interfere with the chemical bonds created by the Portland cement once you add the water and the curing process begins. You can throw candy in some whip cream, but it doesn’t make a milkshake. In this case, if Ken had followed the directions on the bag, he would have realized he was using the improper setting materials in the first place because thin set states very clearly that it can only be used to set ceramic tile.
You can see from this story that bad advice really does come cheap. Cut a corner, save a dime, reap a lifetime of unhappiness, sometimes….
