Here's another builder home with one of their basic ceramic tile installations up for repairs.
The tilesetter (and I use the term loosely) used mastic, the ledge of the tub deck is sloped back to the tub, there's no backerboard or mud ... the list goes on.

Nice....raw lumber and chip board. :rolleyes:

A mortar bed was the only choice for this.

In the tile setting trade,nothing is more satisfying than setting tile,floor or wall, on a properly prepared mortar bed,eh.It just feels ...right.

Sadly,I have also seen "professionals" set tile directly on framing lumber.It will fail.

You need to get out more Ronny. :p

Ron, this is the way the builders do it over half the time. The rest of the time the deck is prepared with greenboard.
The builder knows the onus is on the tile company to do it right, and the tile company knows that the home owner's warranty is only for a year and that there's no way the builder will go back after a year regardless of the damage. So after a year they're both scott free. The only loser is the home owner.

we have six years down here were the builder is responsable for his work.........

I'm glad I came across this thread since we are installing EXACTLY like this. Now before you bite my head off lemme explain.

I work for a small flooring company that subs for an RTM builder. They have been asking us to do those tile tub surround jobs, and since the boss man did em 30 years ago, we now do tile. Thinking that something wasn't quite right about the way were were installing I've been looking up the proper way to tile and have learned a fair bit since.

I'm glad you posted those pictures so that I could see that we are definitely doing something that won't last a long time.

I have already talked with my boss, and said that we need to either change the way we are tiling, or quit accepting the tile jobs if we want to keep a certain level of quality (he does really good flooring). The hard part will be pitching a more expensive way to the builder.

In your opinion, is a mud bed the only way to do a tub skirting like the one you posted, or is it acceptable to use a cement backer board over the framing?

Could you review my procedures to make sure I explain them right?

1. Using a mud bed requires stapling a metal lathe onto the frame, and building a mud bed over it (scratch coat or no?). Use thinset (modified or not?) instead of mastic.

2. Using CBU would require mortaring the cbu to the frame, screwing it down, and then use thinset (modified or not?).

I would appreciate very much a response from anyone qualified. I hate doing jobs the wrong way and these tile jobs keep coming in, so I need to take action one way or another soon. If they won't change the way its done, I will start refusing to do the work.

Right now the boss hasn't heard about any of the jobs failing, how long could this type of job be expected to last? He thinks that since they survive the move, that they will be ok for a long time.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Paul .... and welcome to the forum.
By all means you can use cementboard instead of a mortar bed. The 1/4" thick panels work great.
They should be set into a thin layer of unmodified mortar and screwed, and then seams taped and mudded.

A good quality thinset should be used to set the tiles instead of mastic. After awhile you'll find mortar is easy to use and a heck of a lot cheaper than mastic.