Rugs, Carpets and Carpeting - Laying Carpet over ceramic floor tiles

Hi all,

Can you advise if it is accepatable to lay carpet directly over ceramic floor tiles?

I have a room that is currently tiled (300mm x 300mm tiles), and do not want to smash up the tiles to laydown carpet, but simply lay the carpet over the top, using some good quality carpet underlay. The room is simply a spare room and will not have heavy foot traffic.

If this is possible how are the carpet grips attached to the floor?

Suggestions appreciated.

With concrete tack strips, you should have no problems.

Twelvepole, Thanks for the reply.

How exactly do the concrete tacks attach to the floor? What I was worried about is if they are (nailed/tacked?) to the concrete (or tiles in this case), the floor tiles may smash?

In which case I would need to glue the strips down - or predrill the tiles?

I will have a carpet layer put down the carpet anyway, but dont want him to turn up to lay the carpet and say - no good the tiles need to come up !!!!! are cant attached my strips....

Cheers

Zane

Concrete tack strips have a different type of nail. If you have given up on the tile, why do you care if the tiles may "smash?" If you think that you may want to remove the carpet and revert to the tile in the future, then don't carpet. It is doubtful that a carpet installer will show up and tell you that you need to remove the tile. Carpet installers install carpet every day on masonry surfaces with concrete tack strips. Carpet installation warranties will tend to require that the installer install his own tack strip.

There are a couple of ways to attach the tackstrip.

Concrete nails from the prenailed tackstrip isn't going to hold. 1" steel nails might.

Hammer drilling and using mollies, tapcons, or wood dowels as an anchor.
Either of those methods will TRASH the tile.

Cutting the 4' long tackstrip into 1' lengths, and use liquid nails, and don't glue at the grout lines, and you may get the glue up 20 years later?
You will need to wait 24 hours before stretching in the carpet.

Chemrex makes a product that you apply like liquid nails. Mist it down with water. Then stick the tackstrip into it. They claim you can stretch in 2 hours. Never tried it, but have heard good results from fellow installers, especially around toilets, where breaking a toilet trying to hammer a concrete nail is hazardous!!!!

Hi there- We bought a home with a saltillo tile staircase in it. Our contractor said it would be no problem to cover the tiles with wall to wall carpeting. He mentioned glue nails and strips drying overnight, etc. When I went to Home Depot for a comparitive bid, they told me they would never carpet over tile because the carpet could separate and lead to slipping on the stairs. I have a 3 yr old and a newborn and we want safer stairs for them. I was considering putting on berber or Mohawk Durasoft pile carpeting. Should I trust Home Depot (they say we need to remove the tile and go to concrete subfloor if it exists. If the subfloor is wood, they say we'd need to rebuild the subfloor before we carpet) OR should I allow the contractor to somehow put carpet onto the tile with liquid glue nails and strips??? HELP!!!! We don't want to ruin the stairs and get into a big mess. We want the easiest, safest way to have a quality installation that will remain safe for our kids and our family/guests for at least 5-10 years.

Thanks for your advice.

Zane- Go out find the Chemrex that Carpets Done Right mentioned. You can stretch off it in 2 hours like they say. The stuff is incredible and blows liquid nails away. I've had liquid nails fail on me a couple times and the worst part is you have to wait 24 hours to try again. I've never had Chemrex fail yet. Stopped using LN and never looked back.

If you can get conrete nails to stick in tile twelvepole, you are a better man than me. The few times i tried the tile would just break. Always ended up with loose tackless that i just ended up gluing.

SAhomowner-
You're entire staircase is saltillo tile? or ceramic tiles that look like saltillo? Is this a couple steps you want to carpet or rooms?

Saltillo is traditionally very humpy. You would feel these humps under the carpet even with pad. Saltillo should be torn out if you want to carpet on stairs or a room. It's not that you can't carpet over it- you can carpet over almost anything- but you won't like the results. And then the money is wasted.