Technical guides
Specification guides for bathroom substrates and tiling
Written from site work rather than from product literature, and referenced to the British Standards and manufacturer data that decide what is acceptable. Each guide covers one layer of the build-up: what fails in it, what the standard requires of it, and what the layer above it demands.
TECEprofil pre-wall framing →
Where the system came from and what it replaced, what can be built with it beyond the standard set, how it compares to drywall stud, welded frames and blockwork, and where its published load limits end.
Primers, and why PVA fails →
How cement hydration and substrate suction decide whether the bond holds, why PVA closes one failure and opens another, what a primer actually does inside the pore, and what belongs on screed, anhydrite, gypsum and non-porous backgrounds.
Levelling walls before porcelain →
What turned flatness into a preparation problem rather than a finishing one, how the two families of levelling material differ, why a plane built out of tile adhesive cracks, what has to be true of the substrate before anything goes on it, and what levelling does not fix.
Tile adhesive: why it stopped forgiving mistakes →
Where the demands of a modern adhesive came from, why the requirement on the substrate never moved while the materials trusted to meet it did, what the additives in the bag actually do, and which habits carried over from the old material now bring tiling down.
