Thinking of putting tile on front porch. It has a couple minor cracks. Is there anything that I can put down so that the Tiledoesn‘t crack in the future.
First deal with the cracks. They are normal if they were caused over time by the concrete just settling. If you go to the hardware store you will want to find some crack repairing compounds. They are like concrete and mortar and should be in that section. They contain a rubber based martix which will bend and flex instead of breaking and fill cracks easily. Make sure you put down a even layer of mortar before you begin tiling and it should be okay to tile.
Cover the whole porch over w/ cement as to cover cracks keep porch even then lay tile. Best bet wold be to remove all old cement w/ cracks and start over. It seems everything wants to crack. We just laid a textured patio and it already has 2 huge cracks. We live in washington state and I think it is from small earthquakes. Good luck.
You definately need to fix the cracks or fill them. If you put tile over them then the tile will just crack in time. Using concrete quik set to fill the cracks, then a fine layer of thinset to level should do the job.
You can tile over the concrete as long as the cracks have to shifted meaning on side of the crack is higher than the other. If that is the case you would need to stabilize the ground underneath first. The most cost effective way would be to have it slab jacked. That being said if there are just cracks first fill with fine silica sand then use and elastomeric caulking. DO NOT USE EPOXY!! This will just cause the concrete to crack in another place. Then you want to install a tile membrane on the concrete and then the tile on top of that. This will allow for some cracking and movement of the concrete below without the tile or grout cracking. Durarock or Tileguard make a tile membrane and can be found a any tile supply house. Hope this helps.
