QCon and bathrooms.

[medic5678]

Looking for a suitable sealant for the bathrooms before tiling over the Qcon walls.  I've had fits with this house, by the way.  My wife's family has proven to be cluelessly stupid in following my directions.  They mixed some stuff they bought from a vendor  with the Qcon mortar to "make it more waterproof".  They didn't say a thing about this to me before the did it.  Of course, they applied this to all the walls of the home, interior and exterior.  Surprise, it cracked!  So now I've had to pay the construction people to scrape the walls down and reapply the wall cement, only about $2,500 in the toilet.  I just cannot have them screw up the bathrooms now.  They are too stupid to call the Qcon company and get technical advice.   So I ask here.  We've got Qcon walls in the bathroom and I want to tile over them.  What do I need to apply over the walls before putting on the tile with regular tile morter?  Anyone with experience here, I'd appreciate any help I could get!

[Yellowtail]

You speak Thai well enough to provide detailed instructions to tradesmen? 

[bankruatsteve]

We used Super Block but didn't do anything different that I am aware for tiling.

 

Are you saying they used the "glue" that goes between the blocks as render for the walls?  Wow.  There again, mine was done using normal render.

[sometimewoodworker]

20 hours ago, medic5678 said:

Looking for a suitable sealant for the bathrooms before tiling over the Qcon walls.  I've had fits with this house, by the way.  My wife's family has proven to be cluelessly stupid in following my directions.  They mixed some stuff they bought from a vendor  with the Qcon mortar to "make it more waterproof".  They didn't say a thing about this to me before the did it.  Of course, they applied this to all the walls of the home, interior and exterior.  Surprise, it cracked!  So now I've had to pay the construction people to scrape the walls down and reapply the wall cement, only about $2,500 in the toilet.  I just cannot have them screw up the bathrooms now.  They are too stupid to call the Qcon company and get technical advice.   So I ask here.  We've got Qcon walls in the bathroom and I want to tile over them.  What do I need to apply over the walls before putting on the tile with regular tile morter?  Anyone with experience here, I'd appreciate any help I could get!

If the walls are going to be continuous wet then;

1) using regular tile mortar is a mistake you should be using waterproof mortar, as in swimming pools.

2) using regular grout is another mistake, you should be using a waterproof grout, probably an epoxy based one.

 

Our shower room walls only get intermittently wet, have AAC block walls, normal render, regular wall tiles, regular thin set tile adhesive, and grout

[medic5678]

1 hour ago, sometimewoodworker said:

If the walls are going to be continuous wet then;

1) using regular tile mortar is a mistake you should be using waterproof mortar, as in swimming pools.

2) using regular grout is another mistake, you should be using a waterproof grout, probably an epoxy based one.

 

Our shower room walls only get intermittently wet, have AAC block walls, normal render, regular wall tiles, regular thin set tile adhesive, and grout

Let me get this straight.  At this time, I've got bare Qcon walls.  What do I put directly on the Qcon?  The Qcon render?  And then thin set on top of the Qcon render?  This isn't going to be continuously wet, though Thai bathrooms tend to be damp because you have several people taking showers every day (at our house anyway).   When I put tile on my bathroom floor here in the USA, I put a plastic like coating on the floor to seal under the tiles.  This effectively made a liner pan under the bottom of the floor.  It's like a little Thai bathroom with a floor drain and no shower stall.   Then I put the thin set on top of that, grouted and sealed it with no problems.

 

My nightmare scenario is the tile popping off the Qcon walls.  I had understood that Qcon requires some special sealant to keep water out of it whenever you used it for shower walls because the Qcon would absorb water.    And by the way, I have always appreciated your advice and helpful attitude.  Much appreciated.

 

And finally, though the episode with the outer and inner house walls did irritate me and I have grumbled about it, the real reason I'm building this house is to make my wife happy so she doesn't worry about her mother or sister (and her kids) who will live there.  We are going to go there for 2 months or so every year at most once the Corona craze ends.   I have the most wonderful , awesome wife in the entire world and I love her endlessly.  This house gives her peace of mind about her immediate family and if anyone in her extended family runs into hard times, they can stay at her house.  So it's worth it to me :).

[medic5678]

12 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

You speak Thai well enough to provide detailed instructions to tradesmen? 

I hired a crew who have done Qcon.  They told my mother in law that they had never used this other stuff before, just the plain Qcon render.  She insisted they add this special waterproofing compound to be mixed in with  the Qcon render based on what some salesman had told her.  Not surprisingly, the construction crew said "it's not our fault".  I agree with them.  I don't speak Thai that well, but they didn't need detailed instructions.  I just needed to cut my mother in law out of any decision making for the house, which has been done in no uncertain terms.

[medic5678]

3 hours ago, bankruatsteve said:

We used Super Block but didn't do anything different that I am aware for tiling.

 

Are you saying they used the "glue" that goes between the blocks as render for the walls?  Wow.  There again, mine was done using normal render.

Nope.  They used the correct Qcon render but mixed it with this other unknown waterproofing liquid based on my mother in law's instruction.  And a few days after they finished, it started popping off the walls.

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, medic5678 said:

My nightmare scenario is the tile popping off the Qcon walls.  I had understood that Qcon requires some special sealant to keep water out of it whenever you used it for shower walls because the Qcon would absorb water.    And by the way, I have always appreciated your advice and helpful attitude.  Much appreciated.

I don’t know where you heard the fairy tale.
 

AAC is semi closed cell foam, yes if you hold an AAC block under water for long enough it will saturate BUT the time will be very much longer than for bricks and bocks.
 

AAC blocks may loose a slight amount of bearing  capacity when soaking wet but you are not using them to support any significant weight & they are concrete they don’t swell or shrink.

 

To satisfy yourself call QCon and ask them.

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by sometimewoodworker

[medic5678]

34 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

I don’t know where you heard the fairy tale.
 

AAC is semi closed cell foam, yes if you hold an AAC block under water for long enough it will saturate BUT the time will be very much longer than for bricks and bocks.
 

AAC blocks may loose a slight amount of bearing  capacity when soaking wet but you are not using them to support any significant weight & they are concrete they don’t swell or shrink.

 

To satisfy yourself call QCon and ask them.

 

 

 

Sorry, can't see your images on my restricted network.  So you are saying just use the regular Qcon render, and then thin set directly on top of that?    It would make sense to me that it wouldn't matter if Qcon got wet since it's just concrete anyway.  There's no sense in doing anything different just for the sake of doing it.  I just don't want to deal with tile popping off the bathroom wall from the other side of the world.  I've read about needing to use regular block in the shower areas instead of Qcon because of some problem with Qcon and moisture.

[bankruatsteve]

Not certain, but I don't think render ever goes under tile.  Just the mortar they use for tiling.

[worgeordie]

14 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

You speak Thai well enough to provide detailed instructions to tradesmen? 

They still take no notice,you have to be there to watch them.

regards Worgeordie

[medic5678]

6 minutes ago, bankruatsteve said:

Not certain, but I don't think render ever goes under tile.  Just the mortar they use for tiling.

so the tile thin set will stick directly to Qcon?  I am going to call Qcon :).  Hope someone there speaks English.

[medic5678]

^{I see.  Looks like Qcon makes their own thin bed morter.  Don't add anything to it!}

 

[kamalabob2]

I have a bit of experience with Q Con wall blocks and Diamond AAC wall blocks in Thailand. I have met the MD of several AAC block companies and scores of salesmen and a few actual technical advisors. In Buriram, the #1 luxury estate home builder is Boonsiri. They have ten mid level to high level house estates in Buriram. They buy quality products since the homes they sell are higher priced than other house estates. They do NOT buy products for fun and giggles.  They bought and easily installed with local labor, Dr. Fixit Pidifin 2k.  This is a 2 part Flexible Cementitous Waterproofing Membrane. it is not for large swimming pools. It is used for showers at Boonsiri. Then Weber or Crocodile or Lanko tile adhesive is placed on this affordable Dr. Fixit product. The MD of Dr. Fixit Thailand was educated in Texas. He understands and speaks English. The Dr Fixit representative i work with understands and speaks German, Thai and English.  Miss Dao went to college in Germany.  It will cost the Op less than 85 baht per square meter for the Dr. Fixit Waterproof membrane for his shower. The set in the photo costs 659 baht in Buriram and can easily cover 8 to 10 square meters per set. My home in Satuk has AAC block walls and Kera wall tile in the showers. 

https://www.buriramhome.com/buriram-master-bedroom-suite/

[sometimewoodworker]

1 hour ago, medic5678 said:

Sorry, can't see your images on my restricted network. 

They are YouTube videos 

[medic5678]

I work in a high security prison.   Can't access Youtube and a host of other sites.  They don't mind if you browse the internet (assuming your work is done) but Youtube is off limits.  I'll check it out in the morning. ????

 

[Yellowtail]

8 hours ago, medic5678 said:

I work in a high security prison....

 

 

Making license plates?

[medic5678]

8 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

 

Making license plates?

Hardly, heath care provider.  Cake job, less money than I'd get in an aggressive trauma unit but zero liability.  Just flying under the radar for 11 more months, then retirement.

[Yellowtail]

1 hour ago, medic5678 said:

Hardly, heath care provider.  Cake job, less money than I'd get in an aggressive trauma unit but zero liability.  Just flying under the radar for 11 more months, then retirement.

 

It was a joke

[medic5678]

1 minute ago, Yellowtail said:

 

It was a joke

I knew that, just satisfying any curiosity.  People hear prison, don't know exactly what to think.  One thing is for sure, there's no shortage of customers!