SAND-CEMENT
Sand cement composes of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and sand. OPC is used for rendering and masonry while sand is normally river sand, which is hard to control grain size, cleanliness, and quality.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TILE ADHESIVE VS SAND-CEMENT MIX
Sand cement composes of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and sand. OPC is used for rendering and masonry while sand is normally river sand, which is hard to control grain size, cleanliness, and quality.
.OPC comes in form of small bags and sand must be bought in huge quantity, which extensively occupy storage areas. OPC and sand must be relocated to another area for mixing and the process is dirty and dusty. Tiles need to be soaked in water for at least one day before being laid with sand-cement, and this is time consuming.
To lay tiles with sand-cement traditional way is to apply the mixture of sand-cement in lump on tiles' back so it has to be done with one tile at a time.
Without
Poor bonding strength of sand-cement mixture causes by dirt in the sand and uncertain proportion of the mixture. Besides, there are limitations to use the mixture for laying following tiles in the following conditions.
Thick layer of sand-cement mixture must be used to lay tile traditionally in lump and/or to adjust the floor level, in order to gain its bonding mechanism. There will then be more loads onto structure. Moreover, there will be material wastage since the mixture dries faster than the application.
Tile adhesive is ready-mixed and specially formulated from OPC, selected fine sand, and additives to improve its essential properties for laying tiles. High performance tile adhesive can be used to lay tiles on existing tiles, on polished cement, on wooden substrates (with the use of primer), or on other special substrates.
It's very easy to use tile adhesive, it will be already ready to use after just mixing with water. Bagging product makes it convenient for transportation process, providing low dust and clean working space. Tiles are not needed to be soaked, just un-box them and lay.
Notched trowel is normally and efficiently used to apply the mixture of tile adhesive on the area of about 1 m2. Tiles are then continuously laid onto notched adhesive and quickly adjusted into the lines.
0ptimum
Tile adhesives are formulated according to specific applications such as to lay tiles, glass mosaics, large-size granito (up from 60 x 60 cm), to lay tiles on polished substrates, on dry wall system, on existing tiles without removing them, on external areas, parking areas, industrial areas, in swimming pools, and many more.
Laying tiles by using tile adhesive with notched trowel requires less amount of material. Adhesive layer is a lot thinner than the mixture of sand-cement, and this leads to lighter load to building structure. A bag of 20 kg tile adhesive can be used to lay tiles on the average area of 4 - 5 m2. A bag of 25 kg tile adhesive can be used to lay tiles on the average of 6 - 7 m2.
Area coverage depends on