Tile covered earthen floor

Does anyone have any thoughts on covering an earth floor with tile? Hows about engineered flooring? I'm just curious.

I think you would have settling issues that would mess up the tile work. My earthen floor seems alive. It seems to rise and fall, living and breathing. So if you really wanted to install tile, I would make sure that your floor is really stable before you tile it. I know that for my earthen floor, it would definitely be problematic.
good luck, let us know how it goes

They make under laments for RV's and earth quake prone places. I have never seen them on the east coast, but might be something to look into.

I'm picturing a a packed clay floor and wound need a high end vapor barrier.

I laid ceramic tile on the floor of the first small cabin I built in GA. I filled in the floor to almost the desired level, then laid down a sheet of plastic as a moisture barrier, and then about two inches of sand. I raked this as level as I could and dampened it slightly and then laid the tiles directly onto it, butting one another as much as possible. A little sand worked its way up between them for the first few weeks but after that they locked into place and it didn't seem to be any dirtier than any other kind of floor. And another beauty of the system was that if I cracked a tile by dropping something heavy on it, I simply pried it up and replaced it with another one from my scrounge pile.....

The out of print earthen floor pamphlet from Canelo Project mentions installing tile and carpet over earthen floor. I have no personal knowledge of doing this other than hearing it has been done before.

Saltillo tiles are a terra cotta tile popular in the Southwest and warm climates. Natural grout goes nicely with Saltillo. Not good with freeze-thaw situations because they crack. Some methods involve sealants and glazes, but not necessary. Probably not a good choice for radiant heat tubing below the tiles, I imagine the temp. fluctuation would cause them to crack as well.
I remember when I had the marvelous opportunity to visit the indigenous Tarahumara people in Chihuahua, Mexico. They had natural earth floors, rammed earth I believe. I wiped my feet before I entered the house, which caused a bit of an uproar of laughter. The dirt on my shoes was what the floors were made of! Ah, cultural diversity. Gotta love it! ((Keeping my fingers crossed for the Keyline ticket! This would be such a game-changer in my career and impact on the world!! Best of luck to everyone!))

My experience living in a daylight basement dug out by my father. The ground was sand and well drained. The up hill side of the house was dry because of the attached carport so even though we live in a high rain area there was no problem with dampness. He had dug down to the level of the foundation blocks then laid down plastic then covered the plastic with sand. Then another layer of plastic and plywood with battens under the seems. This was covered with indoor/outdoor carpet.

This floor was relatively temperature stable because of the layer of dry sand. It had a comfortable give to it when walking.

From my experience laying engineered flooring that snaps together and has a foam underlay, I think it would hold up to shifting with the plywood underneath.

You may want to consider using cork underlay, its relatively cheap, renewable, water proof, soundproof, insects hate it and it chars, but is not easily burned. It does work well under tile. I used some under tile before on an earthen floor, it worked great. Good luck withthe project.

Earthen floors are gaining popularity as beautiful, natural, non-toxic flooring option. Coming from traditions all over the world. Earthen floors combine local sand, clay soil and fiber.

Have a plan to do tiles on my earthen floor with radiant heating.  ... base of the old house are big rocks on the entire fundament area around 60-80 cm deep ( they're uneveny laid ) + around 30 cm heigt of all main walls are rocks too. Walls are then raw earthen bricks. The whole rocky base was covered by tar paper to the hight of the bricks and I  put 6-7 cm of foamy glass as insulation. Then 10cm of earthen floor ( from another, but broken house used raw earthen bricks + sand + CEMIX HelmPutz clay mass )  / radiant heat tubing / another 10cm of earthen floor layer.  I want to try to put the bathroom tiles directly on it ( and the walls ), so I could then post up, how it goes.

Hi Robert,

Welcome to Permies.

John F Dean wrote:Hi Robert,

Welcome to Permies.

Thanks a lot !

Just for better idea of my foundations on witch I will lay the tiles :  
( not sure, if its a problem on the side of ProtonDrive, but if the pictures look broken for you, just right-click on them and open them in a new window )



Here is the foamy glass and tar paper barier around the rock foundation.



The first layer of earthen floor. All foamy glass was covered by the fine dirt that was left from the original floor. It was not even, as the foamy glass sat on the uneven terrain of the rock foundation. But it was stomped till it would not move around anymore, just as a stomped fine gravel base would be done. The first layer was then roughly even and the greatest thickness is 10cm.





Radiant heating and the laying of the second 10cm layer. Want to use the same mix to glue the tiles, will see how it will hold. If it will be prone to breaking off, I will try less sand in the mix. Still have a lot of old dirt bricks to re-use for material for this. But if anyone has a proven mixture for tile-laying, I am open to try that out as well.

Took a bit ... had some problems with uneven walls ( it is an very old building ). So I started putting some tiles on the floor. Practically, the same mix I used for the earthen floor.
One difference with normal tiling, I do not put the binding material on the floor, but on the tile and then press into the floor. Its a good practice to have the area under the tile completely filled with the earth mix. Then I clean all the gaps between the tiles for grout to be applied. The only question I have now is the choice of grout -epoxy, or high-performance one ? ... Due to more flexibility, I would probably go for the epoxy one. What do you say ?

         The little "step" alongside the inner wall was made to hide the walls foundation. These old houses have a stone foundation, that is quite wide. For the outer and basic walls, its the same width, but the wall for the bathroom is just one brick layer thick, so the foundations edge ( covered with a water--barrier ) had to be "hidden" this way. Its maybe a bit eye-sore, but I had no choice, if I did not want to rise the floor level another few centimeters. Original floors were approximately 20 - 30 cm lower, than the top of the stone foundations, so even with insulation and double layer floor cause of the radiant heat, it was still not enough to level it. And I wanted to keep all the foundations at the same level. The floor also takes up some height out of all my doors and it is already - a Hobbit house in terms of having to duck slightly going from room to room. ( they are 170-180 cm low already ). A newly build house would have no problems with that, but I cant rise the door-frames due to possible wall-stability issues and legislation.
         Half of the floor was made a week prior, it is already stable to walk on freely and I took all the fitting pieces off of it. Due to the whole volume under the tile being earth, it has no affinity to bend, of detach if stepping round the edges of the tiles. When I put the tiles down, I slightly shake them into place, pressing some material out, so I had to put slightly more than needed to be level with the surrounding ones. Then scooped the overflowing material off. Both ground-surface and tile had been slightly moisturized before material has been applied. You also feel if it is well placed, cause if you try to pull it off the ground, it just feels like its sucking itself into the ground, being unable to lift the tile, much like if you stuck with your shoe in deep mud.
         Also, ignore the walls - I had to start prior to putting the plaster on them for various reasons. I suggest you never do so with any floor. Its just some necessary evil I have to go trough, that I know will come back, kicking my butt real hard later on. I surely have an spot in hell just for that cursing I will spew cause of it, god forgive.  
         The real test comes later - when the floor is finished and used for two-three years. As some of you said, thermal expansion might be a problem and I plan to keep you up to date for the whole time. But right now, it seems quite well and nice. It definitely takes a bit more time to lay, than tiles on synthetic materials, simply due the fact, that I try to fill the whole volume under it with material. That takes dome fitting time.  

Nice work! Looks very like the way the builder I hired to redo the old earthen floors in my Bulgarian kitchen and bathroom did it. They were in poor condition  - compacted rock solid in parts, badly damaged by a long-term leaky roof in other areas. Some spots that had been hidden under furniture were like an empty egg shell, looked okay until trodden on, when they collapsed because they'd been hollowed out underneath by the water!

I wasn't there while he worked, but the end result and even the tiles used look very similar!