At the beginning of 2012, the owner of a somewhat outdated bathroom in a two-family house in Mettmann decided time was ripe for a renovation to give it a breath of fresh air. The client was particularly keen on having a wall covering that was as easy to clean as possible, and 60 x 120 cm Italian porcelain stoneware tiles were therefore chosen. The demolition work was to be kept to a minimum and completed quickly. So, with the agreement of the client, the installers decided to cement the new, large-format tiles to the old wall tiles. Master Tiler Johannes van Noppen worked closely with the application engineers and technical specialists of construction chemicals specialist PCI Augsburg GmbH and his son, architect Philipp van Noppen.

In order to ensure the new XXL-tiles adhered well to the old wall covering, the construction professionals sanded this down lightly with a diamond cup wheel. They removed the dust from the surface before applying a coat of PCI Gisogrund 303 wash primer. The experts smoothed out any slight unevenness with PCI Nanolight multi-use flexible tile adhesive. In order to get the most out of the dimensions and match the tile format to the spatial conditions, the specialist tradesmen covered two wall surfaces with PCI Pecidur high-resistance foam elements. This allowed them to follow the dimensions of the tiles and the shower tray perfectly. The installers used the new PCI FT Flex polymer modified tile adhesive to cover the total 20.10 m² wall area with the large-format tiles. This flexible mortar mix has been developed specifically for XXL porcelain stoneware and offers the highest stability. The product also evens out stresses resulting from temperature fluctuations in the substrate, making it ideal for tiling in bathrooms. The installers filled the gaps between the tiles with PCI Geofug joint grout. This also met the client's wish for an easy-to-clean covering for their bathroom thanks to the so-called geopolymer based peciclean effect of the innovative joint grout. The low-dust formulation and a long washing interval also made installation easy.