Thread: driving a car on tiles

Frankly, I wouldn't.

Not unless you want to do them again at a later date.

Lots of houses on the Gold Coast have tiled driveways and garages/carports. A bit tacky I reckon, but it's obviously possible. You'd need to speak to a knowledgeable supplier regarding tile quality and what products to use for for gluing and grouting.

Mick

I've seen "quarry" tiles used in commercial garages, and they look quite handsome. BUT, quarry tiles are only 150mm x 150mm. Even with the smaller size, a professional tiler would be better able to make a crack-resistant installation. For DIY 300x300, I think you're inviting disappointment.

Joe

Go and take a look inside your nearest BMW workshop and see what they do. They all have tiled floors.

thanks for the replies

as Dr Jan Itor they have tiled floors in car dealerships & i have seen cars in shopping centres on tiled floors so it must be possible.

i'm thinking that its the glue you use and how well the tiles are laid on it.
i would be willing to replace tiles when i stopped using it as a garage.
it would only be 2 rows as we only put 1 car in there.

but there has to be a technique that would mean i could lay them and drive on them

i've thought about leaving the section where the car goes untiled for the time being but this would look a bit odd

I agree with a couple of the previous posts. There's no reason why it won't be perfectly OK to drive the car on them. Just use the rubberised flexible glue and make sure it's evenly spread. Ask the tile shop people what they lay on the floor of car showrooms.

I'll be very surprised if they suggest anything flexible. A pro tiler would more likely use a cementitious rigid setting bed, with complete contact. Final tile surface would be about 15-20mm above the original slab (depending on tile thickness). Bear this in mind with respect to other nearby floor surfaces.

Joe

There is a huge variation in floor tiles, trust the guy at the tile shop and get him to guarantee a certain tile if laid by someone he recommends. Don't go flexible as it will break.

i decided to tile the floor and leave the 2 tracks where the car goes untiled until i erect the carports which hopefully should be around christmas time or early next year.

i'll just put a piece of ply in the tracks temporarily

No need to do that!

As Mick (and others) have said, tiled driveways and trafficable areas are done every day of the week in the "classy" burbs. (Like every house on the northern Gold Coast, and almost any in Bris with a $1m price tag)

A car actually weighs a lot less per square mm of ground contact area than a refrigerator, so you'd better not tile under the fridge either!

There aren't any tricks, just ask the tile supplier for his/her adhesive recommendations.

Don't make more work for yourself by doing it twice!

Cheers,

P

Probably too late this advise. I wouldn't go flexable adhesive. To prevent your tiles from cracking you need a very solid base with no drummy areas.
And also beware of what the tile shops try to sell you. A tiler will give you better advise.
Also a word of warning if you use flexible adhesive on your tile job be aware that grout is not flexible despite claims that you can use an additive. You have to use mastic/silicon jointing material if you have movement of your substrate if you dont want your grout to crack and come loose.

Flexible (adhesive) doesn't mean the tiles have the ability to move. It just means that the rubber in the adhesive gives it the ability to have an almost microscopic amount of compression when the slab moves.
I wasn't suggesting a flexible adhesive with the car in mind. I don't think the car will crack tiles regardless of what adhesive you use as long as the adhesive is evenly spread. I was suggesting flexible adhesive from the point of view of the slab itself. I don't know much about concrete so I sought advice from the tilers at a couple of the local tile shops when I tiled a slab under my house. They advised a flexible adhesive because slabs move and get fine cracks. If the adhesive isn't flexible the tiles will crack. I suppose it also depends on the quality of the slab itself. Mine wasn't the greatest because it had a number of hairline cracks and with that history of movement a rigid adhesive would be a disaster.
I'm only passing on advice I received from experts.

Hi Adrian,
I wasn't having a go at you. I have flexible adhesive under my kitchen tiles and I wouldn't call the amount of movement microscopic. I'd say I can get about 0.5 - 1mm movement - enough to loosen the grout joints.
That movement is just me standing (or jumping) on the tile.
My comment about not trusting tile shops for advise has come from getting advise to buy expensive tile grout additive that supposedly makes it flexible. I now have to de-grout the entire kitcken floor and redo it with silicon.

Bleedin,
You've got a problem that isn't necessarily related to tile adhesive I reckon.

I'd be interested to learn what tile substrate you have, I haven't seen an instance where "flexible" adhesive could possibly be the cause of that much movement.

These days with lots of tiles in apartments, and lots of sound rating requirements, tiles are layed over "soundproof" beds of rubberised material.

Our current project has a 10mm bed then adhesive over it, and there's not a sign of movement.

I have seen similar problems to the ones you describe when layed directly over a timber floor though.

cheers,

P