Laying Tile, some Dummy Instructions

Score and snap cement backerboard

In the silver age of television (even before the "golden age"), Art Linkletter¹ hosted a show titled "Kids Say the Darnedest Things." You know, ask a kid a question some adults might find difficult to answer and listen to them fabricate an answer that's so off-the-wall that it might be considered "funny." Well, kids do say the darnedest things and it's cute in a seven-year-old. The problem is that some of those kids grow up and keep on saying stupid things when asked a question on a topic about which they know jack. That'd be no problem if they weren't pretending to be knowledgeable; and worse, pretending for cash. Pretending like eHow.com's Dannah Swift, who figured it was no problem to leverage her MA in English Literature to take on the question "How to Tile a Floor Over Plywood."² 

As luck would have it, one of the Antisocial Network's DIYers is in the middle of laying a new tile floor even as we write this, so he read Dannah's contribution with a jaundiced eye. "A typical eHowian," he said, "Who just googled the question and reworded what she found... In other words, utter bull." Here's why he thought so: 

Swift said "A plywood subfloor is a fine material on which to begin a tiling project. The use of cement backerboard beneath floor tiles has made it possible to tile over many different types of surfaces, and plywood is no exception." Well, maybe -- except most modern houses have OSB subfloors. If you run into plywood while doing a remodel, it's most likely lauan plywood used as a backer for resilient flooring (vinyl). If you're laying ceramic, glass or porcelain tile, you need to pull that junk up first (though Dannah doesn't say so). She also said, "Start with a clean surface. Sweep the floor and vacuum any dust from corners and the edges of the room. Secure the plywood to the floor joists by driving corrosion-resistant nails through the plywood into the joists below." We were curious, though: if there's no plywood subfloor in place, WTF did you sweep? Next, Dannah said to lay cement backerboard. On a clean subfloor, yes; but over an existing plywood underlayment? We think not, since the sandwich is getting a little thick by now.  Worse, she misinformed her readers, "If you have to cut [cement backerboard], use a circular saw with a masonry blade." James Hardie (the company that makes the stuff) says don't use high-speed saws to cut the stuff; instead you score and snap. Who you gonna trust: English major or manufacturer?

The rest of Swift's instructions were boilerplate tiling instructions reworded from a couple of fairly reliable sources. Surprisingly, Dannah didn't mung them up too badly (but how hard is it to reword instructions, anyway?) Still, given that she had already screwed up the actual question, we have no problem awarding her today's Dumbass of the Day trophy. Stick to English Lit questions from now on, OK, Dannah?

¹ Yeah, we know, Bill Cosby had a show of the same title for a couple of years, but Linkletter's version ran from 1945 to 1969. Suck it, Cos!
² The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_7780334_tile-floor-over-plywood.html

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