# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Tiling Over painted walls

## spartan

I've seen a few posts recommending that people dont tile over painted walls....
I found this adhesive that seems to say it is suitable?  Tile Adhesives

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## stevoh741

I would at least rough it up some with sandpaper first

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## Dr Freud

This is great in theory, but bad in practice.  Bottom line, don't tile on paint. 
Their instructions say "Ensure the surface is sound...", so if it all goes pear shaped, they will say that the reason the job failed is because you didn't ensure this (otherwise it wouldn't have failed), thereby leaving you high and dry. 
Lawyers aside, remove as much of the paint by chemical/mechanical means possible prior to beginning tiling.  Reason is that you want the tiling system sticking to the wall not the paint, especially if the paint is weakly adhered. 
The bigger the job, the more important the preparation. 
Just because tiles go on one at a time, does not mean they always come off one at a time.  Once the "system" is completed, you will have about a 1cm thick x H x W fixed sheet of concrete/ceramic.  The weight of this can be considerable (and razor sharp when broken).  Trusting the "stickiness" of a coat of paint to hold this weight up is not only a bad idea, but dangerous.  It is bad enough on render/plaster etc, but on more flexible surfaces like Gyprock it's just plain crazy. 
If it's just a laundry splashback, it's small enough to do little damage if it fails. 
If you're talking full bathroom walls, do it right, or get top private health cover.  :2thumbsup:

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## jago

I would suggest you do as Doc suggest,  he might just start posting graphs and pictures and lots of technical stuff on paint strength versus tile weight ....
PMSL

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## Bloss

I would not be as hard and fast as that - most adhesive instructions tell you that you can tile over painted surfaces and sometimes recommend a primer (which they will sell you of course!). Eg: http://www.rossettotiles.com.au/surfaceprepguide.pdf  They say unless it is flaky or chalky or breaking down in some other way it would probably be fine. I have tiled over quite a few painted surfaces and never had failure, but have seen failure of latex type adhesives on the recommended fibre sheeting surfaces even with correct prep. If you do tile over paint then sanding is a good idea - and read and follow instructions. 
But - IMO it is not good or best practice - best to remove paint or use new substrate sheeting.

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## spartan

Thanks for the feedback....
I guess I got a bit confused because it seems to be OK to tile on walls that you have painted acrylic waterproof membrane on but not ordinary paint? 
In terms of removing existing paint...in my situation the bathroom is a shower room and I've replaced walls where there old tiles, but probably have about 4 sqm of paint. Its ok to either use paint stripper, a hot air gun, labour politician of 60 grit random orbital sander on it? The actual wall sheeting is villaboard. 
cheers

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