# Forum Home Renovation Tiling  Heat tolerant tile adhesive

## Blue gum

Hi there, 
I have a freestanding wood burning slow combustion heater and I'll be tiling my fireplace hearth shortly. The tiles will be around the front, rear and sides of the firebox. 
Is there any particular type of tile adhesive that will tolerate the heat better? 
Cheers

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## Moondog55

Thanx for posting this, I need that answer too as I want to tile my soon to be exposed brick chimney

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## Oldsaltoz

I suspect there is no requirement for a special tile adhesive for this application, however I also suspect any rubber based tile glue might not stand up over time. 
Under floor heating has been since Roman times. 
A call to your tile supplier or other tile outlet should put you at rest. 
Good luck. :Smilie:

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## Blue gum

I thought I'd share some of my findings. 
I used a thermometer and found the hotest part of my fireplace hearth gets to 60 degrees. 
Nost Mapei adhesives seem to be rated to 90 degrees and I found one that was rated to 100 degress. The datasheets state this. This is the highest rating I could find for stuff available in Oz.  
I spoke to a technical guy from ParexDavco. He reckons their SMP adhesive is rated to 70 degrees. He reckons I should also use a Polymer additive Davelastic. I think I'll go with this. 
Cheers

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## Brettus

Aside from asking a specialist tile shop or calling the product reps, I would use a good quality flexible tile glue (floor glue) as it needs to be able to expand and contract with the different temperatures.  Its the same deal with tiling floors with underfloor heating systems.
cheers

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## brettsyoung

> Aside from asking a specialist tile shop or calling the product reps, I would use a good quality flexible tile glue (floor glue) as it needs to be able to expand and contract with the different temperatures. Its the same deal with tiling floors with underfloor heating systems.
> cheers

  Tile shop guy told me the same thing. The flexibility feature of the adhesive is more important than the radiant heat effect. ie any good quality tile adhesive will work fine. 
cheers
Brett

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## dangermouse1598

Hi, I'm about to tile the splashback area in the chimney behind my Aga woodstove/cooker. I spoke to one local who used normal tile adhesive behind a woodfire only to have all the tiles pop off the wall. I rang davco, ardex and dunlop all who said they had nothing suitable but the nice dunlop man gave me the number for a place in Melbourne that installs pizza ovens. They have a motar/adhesive that they believe will work well but reading the posts here I'm now not sure as i dont think it is flexible.
I would love to hear more advise from other forum folk. I know there is a glue in England and emailed the company but thy never replied.  Cheers. Sue

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## Moondog55

In my situation i don't think flexibility will be an issue.
I was going to mortar 19mm compressed sheet to the exposed brickwork and tile the sheep for cosmetic reasons, i used my multi meter probe to take the temp of the plaster wall near the ceiling and it read 76C, I think the brickwork will be quite a few degrees hotter than that, so what about a high temperature rated builders glue or HT silicon

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## Brettus

I reckon you will have no problem using flexible glue, or the cheapest non-flexible glue, the worst that might happen in such a small area will be some minor cracks in the grout.  We just use good quality flexible glue where expansion will occur as no professionals want to be called back to redo a job for just a little crack in the grout. 
The reps for the tile glue companies probably just say nothing is suitable because they are being on the conservative side. 
The example that was mentioned where tiles popped off a wall was probably due to mastic being used, which is no good for high temp.

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