Flooring Tile - Ceramic Tile floor prep

Hello, I'm planning to tile my kitchen and here are my specs:3/4 inch T&G subfloor (looks like OSB). It's stamped "Sized for Spacing, Exposure 1, 361."
Joists are 2x9 (exactly), 16" OC, with 12' unsupported span on one side under the kitchen.

I'm planning on using Ditra, then Warm Tiles cabling (where appropriate), then SLC over cables, thinset, and finally the tiles. I will also put extra screws into the joists before the Ditra for strenghtening. I believe I can tape the Warm Tiles cable straps to the Ditra rather than staple.

Is there anything I'm not considering or have wrong? I've done several tile jobs before but they were on slabs.

Thanks in advance!!!!!!!

Steve

Ditra goes on top of the whole sandwich, not at the base and slc's are no good over osb, so best would be 3/8" bc plywood over the subfloor with a 1/4" perimeter gap and the interior seams caulked with cheap painters caulk to keep the slc from running into them and the perimeter sealed with foam weather striping to maintain your 1/4" perimeter gap and to seal it from your slc finding even the smallest hole (trust me, you don't want that to happen). Then your heat cables, then check for continuity, then pour your slc, use a rubber driveway sealer squeegee to pull the slc gently across the cables as each cable creates an area of surface tension, then your Ditra. Bedding your cables with glue from a hot glue gun will help to keep them from floating up in the slc.

Though you might not like the height of the added plywood, the biggest killer for your floor would be delection between the joists and the plywood will give you the rigidity you want.

The plywood installation should follow these guidelines as set forth by Schluter. you wil need to cut and paste this into your browser as this site stopped allowing active links for some unknown reason. One day everything jusy stopped working:

http://www.schluter.com/5138.aspx

I haven't seen the link feature work in over a year bri! :)

Hopefully all these options will be back with this upcoming maintenance.

Yeah, I know. For a while you could do lots of good stuff, active links, quote snippets of pertinent info to make sure a response was very clear, etc. Sure would be useful to have them back.

Ok, I think I've got it, however I just can't see the heat cables radiating throught the Ditra that well??? Could I use Hardibacker or cement board instead of plywood, then heat cables, then SLC, then thinset, then tiles?


I also wasn't aware that the Ditra was so expensive, but I want to do it right.

Also, I installed the Warm Tiles in the basement and it works great. Any opinions on whether it's needed on a wood floor? 2/3 of the floor below the kitchen is the unheated furnace room. I'd hate to regret not doing it after it's all said and done.

Thanks again

Ditra's R value is nil. It will isolate the tile field and help with the constant thermal expansion and cooling that can in time cause shear bond failures. One other thing it does is should you break and need to replace a tile, you would atleast know that when you hit orange, stop digging.

Ditra is inexpensive online at www.tile-experts.com

Ditra is comparable in price to using cement board once you add the price of all the screws and cbu will take about 2-3 times as long to install.

Thanks guys. One more quick question. I've decided to go with mortor to embed the cables rather than SLC. Which shoud l use Mapei Ultracontact or Mapei Kerabond mixed with Keraclastic? I know to follow with straight dry set mortor (Kerabond). I have a medium size area to do so I'm a little concerned about ease of spreading and keeping it level in the areas with out the cables.
Thanks

bump ____________

May as well use Kerabond and Keralastic because that'll work fine to install Ditra to OSB. Then use Kerabond mixed with water to set tile on Ditra.

Jaz

Thanks, I think I've finally got the prep figured out.
Now a grout question. We'll be using 13x13 porcelin tiles with a 1/4 grout line. We'd planned on using a light to medium sanded grout. It is in the kitchen, lots of kids and spills.
I've looked for info here on the epoxy grout but haven't found a lot. Anybody have recommedations of manufacturers or installation tips? Worth the cost/effort? I've done 4 or 5 tile jobs before with the regular grout but I'm thinking of going with the epoxy.