Particleboard Flooring

[John Davidson]

Can anyone tell me if all 'Flooring Grade' particleboard is suitable for use in wet areas or is there still flooring grade particleboard manufactured / available in Australia that can't be used under wet areas without the addition of something like a fibre cement ceramic tile underlay sheet? In other words, is all 'flooring grade' particleboard a 'moisture resistant' substrate as defined in AS 3740 Waterproofing of Wet Areas?

JD

[silentC]

Someone was talking about that stuff a couple of weeks ago. There is a particleboard flooring available for use in wet arreas. It is different to the standard flooring grade stuff. It is treated to be water resistant. I can't recall what it was called but I imagine there would be various brand names on the market.

I would still prefer to use cement sheet in wet areas. But as you typically have to waterproof the entire floor these days anyway, I don't suppose it matters.

[strangerep]

I've heard that a better solution is to use marine-grade
tongue&groove ply, glued together down the groove with
sikaflex. Also glued *and* fastened to the supporting
joists. That approach banishes the movement problems
that eventually always plague simple CFC sheet designs.

You then coat the whole thing with some sort of
painted membrane and put tiles on top as usual.

[OBBob]

Wow ... marien ply sounds an expensive way to go! But I could be wrong.

I think Aquatite was what Silent was thinking of ... mentioned a couple of weeke ago here.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=45432&highlight=aquatite

I know nothing about it.

[silentC]

Yep Aquatite it was. I looked it up and there are two products with the same name. One is chipboard flooring and the other is a waterproofing membrane. So you could use Aquatite and waterproof it with Aquatite.

Or is it the other way around?

:)