Ask the expert
“Well, that’s a simple enough question,” says Tim Hennelly of Little Rock, owner of Casa Buena House Inspections. “Yet, it is a question which has generated more discussion and debate than you can shake a stick at.
“Depending on who you talk to, the answers range from maybe, yes, it depends, to absolutely not.”
There are adhesive products available which are made to do exactly this so the answer would seem simple enough. However, these products’ information material lists specific conditions under which they can and cannot be used.
“It sort of takes all the fun out of knocking out a quick tile job which would look real good — if only for a little while,” Hennelly says, adding, “Although I do not like to assume anything, I think I am safe in supposing that your 1940s house is built on a pier-andbeam foundation as opposed to a concrete slab.”
It’s also important to know exactly what type of resilient flooring you are considering putting the tiles over.
“Vinyl and linoleum are vastly different materials, and as vinyl came into use as a flooring material in the 1940s, it may actually be your current floor covering material,” Hennelly says.
Knowing what is under the current flooring is of vital importance to how to proceed in the floor remodeling, he says, as some of these materials can compress or be adversely affected by small amounts of moisture.
“The instructions for one of the direct bond adhesives states, in effect, that to place ceramic tiles directly on resilient flooring, the flooring must be bonded to a rigid substrate
(underlayment/subfloor material), it has to meet specific deflection requirements, it cannot be a cushioned type of resilient flooring, it must be fully adhered to the substrate and it cannot have a water soluble adhesive adhering it to the substrate,” Hennelly says.
“Well, you can’t get much more specific than that. The bottom line is, if you can meet all of those requirements, proceed with your tile installation. If you cannot be sure of all of them, do not directly apply the tiles to the vinyl/linoleum floor covering. “I have seen lots of cases where the end result was loose and cracked tiles. For some reason, I keep thinking of what my dad used to always say, ‘If you are going to do a job, do it right the first time.’
“Some of the same factors apply to sheet vinyl on a concrete slab,” Hennelly concludes. “In this case, the sheet vinyl is sometimes only perimeter sealed to the concrete which means that the majority of it is not adhered at all.
“One doesn’t even need a good imagination to figure out what would happen to the ceramic tiles which were adhered to an unsecured floor covering.”