Schluter Kerdi-Board vs. Laticrete Hydro Ban Board --- Pros and Cons of Using Foam Tile Backer Board

alright she's rolling hello welcome to Tile Coach I'm Isaac Ostrom I'm a licensed

tile

contractor in Northern California today I'm bringing you a review of some half inch Schluter Kerdi-

board

Foam Wall Boards and Laticretes hydraulic strip

board

s in Also half inch, so half inch wall board is popular, it basically replaces half inch duroc, half inch drywall that we used to use a lot, still used in showers , but these boards are lightweight, easy to cut and have really taken over the market and are also already waterproof, so before, when you put Duroc on, you had to go over it with waterproofing, either with a roll-on waterproofing like Red Guard or Hydro Band applied liquid or you would go over with a sheet of membrane like one of these guys, these waterproof things also come in a sheet of membrane so you can just apply it over the wall board that is already there but this will save you a step , it's extremely light, so here's a full sheet of

kerdi

-board that I can lift and I have a great video from a long time ago, like 2012,

using

Kerdi-board in a shower and we used to float mud all over our walls, well, In this project we had a spiral staircase that was there.

It has been very, very difficult to get mud and even drywall to climb this little spiral staircase, so we chose Kerdi-board and I got a video. I'll put the link in the description down there, so comment below too, let me know which one is your favorite.

foam

board is because there are different um we there is a go board is popular um what are the other

foam

boards luke there is

hydro

block there is a saluter board

kerdi

you know wheat is popular um wheat was probably the first one right and it has a coating a little different, it has like a matte cement and fiberglass coating, it's a little different than these but they are pretty similar in the way they work, first there are some differences, a Hydro Ban board has a permanent rating more low. so I think it has a permanent rating of 0.42 again correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyone who has their technical data sheets correct me if I speak wrong because sometimes I even want to say something else and it comes out wrong, very correct. I, if I'm wrong, think a permanent rating of 0.442, which is the amount of time it is a test based on the amount of time it takes for the vapor to penetrate through it, so the water vapors also , um uh, so Kerdi-board is like 0.9 i. Believe it, almost double the number in terms of perm rating, which means it's more permeable. It's like the vapor goes through the Kerdi board twice as fast as the Hydro Ban board, which is the same for the sheet membrane, so Mira, with the

hydro

ban sheet membrane, is much thicker, it is much thicker and I think I tried to do a little tear test before it was much thicker where Kerdi is thinner and tears very easily so it has a higher perm rating so not recommended for use .

In continuous use commercial steam showers where you can use the hydroband sheet membrane and a Hydroman board, that's one of the differences. Another difference is that Schluter doesn't want you to use modified thin adhesives on their boards, whereas at Laticrete they got a whole line of modified thin adhesives that you can use so that opens you up to

using

many different thin sets that are high performance. You can use thin sets much better than unmodified ones on the kerdi board, but as far as the boards go, I wanted to do it as a couple of little tests, one is how easy they cut and then the other would be I want to make a little force test where I emulate between the wall studs to see how much compression you get.

Actually I'm going to do it. to step on it in the middle like a 12 inch stretch and see which gives more so we're going to do that and then also do a heat test so the reason I would even mention heat is because a lot of people don't know that. with foam boards is that they are very sensitive to high heat, so if you had a steam shower and you had a steam vent where the steam comes out, then the steam comes out of the vent at a minimum of 212 degrees, so they are 212 degrees. coming out of that steam vent, so I'm going to show you what happens when high heat hits these foam boards.

The other thing I also see people use it on fireplaces, so if you put this on a fireplace around, you know right up there. your fireplace under the mantel you're going to get a lot of heat, whether it's from a gas fireplace or a wood-burning fireplace. You know it's pretty hot right there, so I want to show you what happens when you put heat on it. A couple of things again, I'm glad you're here and also to note that I am not sponsored by any of these companies. This is a completely unbiased review. Sorry for the beeping.

I have people coming and going so this is a totally unbiased review. The reason I can do this because I've been making my own merchandise by putting it on our website, you guys have been buying it. Thank you very much, so that's my little add-on. Please continue to support our channel and I can provide you with these unbiased reviews. I'll put the link. in the description and post a comment to get you if you want one of these hats, a t-shirt, we have mugs now and soon we will start making drain tools, all the other things I talk about, so thank you.

Thank you very much for your support. Now let's move on to the cut. The nice thing about these foam boards is that they usually give you some kind of pattern to cut so if I want to make an 18 inch cut I can put a line in and Um you know the

laticrete

s are a little bit further apart but I could set up a rule in relation to those points and I don't need to take another action, so if I get my period, my beautiful stabila again is not sponsored, I just have always sponsored it. I used them and I loved them.

I can line up the dots. Their logo took some of the dot pattern, but I can follow these four and get a nice line here, so these foam boards are nice and easy to cut. You can usually get through them. one or two passes, oh, that's the other thing about, um, okay, when cutting

laticrete

, what I've noticed is that you can cut it like drywall. I don't need to go all the way through so I can do one pass like drywall by cutting the At the top, I didn't cut it all the way through, you can score and snap like drywall so the back you know you can still see which is there and then you can just grab your knife and go so it's easy and it's nice to cut like this okay this is my 18 inch piece so I'm going to cut this one 18 by 18 so again I'm going to show you with the points here 18 inches again, this is not as precise, uh, the

schluter

.

The Kerdi board has these really tight grids, which is really helpful. You rarely need to make lines when you are making your cuts. I'm going to do the same thing here, so again I'm just going through the top layer of the Hydro Ban board and it's going to mark and break like that, so I don't think Kerdi you're going to be able to do that with this hydro ban board again. This layer is very thick. Okay, I'm not going to say very thick, but she's thicker than Kerdi. so it has a thicker waterproofing layer than the kerdi board, so I have a little square, so let's cut it to the side now our cursor board.

One thing to note about the kerdi board is that it's definitely softer, okay? If you're going to put it in your truck, be prepared to have holes again. It's just a slimmer look. Look how thin the paper or whatever is and how easy it is to tear off. I don't even know what. It is made, but it is very thin, so many times you know it is difficult to transport this material to and from a job, we used to use it a lot and every time we bring an extra sheet to this to the store it would just be destroyed, it has holes, all the corners are bumped, it compresses very easily, so anyway we're going to go ahead and make a cut, I'll see if I can do the same, so again one of the nice things about Kerdi-board is that you have all these different grids, so I can make a mark and then look at where it's going to be, follow it down and it's right in the middle of this grid so I'm going to see if I can make a quick one like I did with a hydroban let's see what happens here so yeah , you could do the same thing with the uh kerdi board, so again I think it's a little bit more accurate way to make a straight line than trying to go all the way because your knife will start walking over you when you're going through the top layer.

It is very easy to maintain a straight line. We'll put this aside and I'll make another cut here. 18 inches, okay, so this time the grids will be different, so they won't line up the same every time. Now I'll be on the right side of this grid, but it's nice to be able to just cut away. a nice straight line without marking it you have a steady hand thanks to luke for giving me a new pair of safety glasses it's funny I probably don't need them in this video all the videos I showed myself busting

tile

s I'm not wearing safety glasses but I'm trying to get better .

Be a good example, that's why I gave them to you. Yes, we were going to tear out the pan, so comment in the next section because if I don't use them, you guys always complain. At least give me a thumbs up because I'm using them well, so I bought my two 18 by 18 pieces. The first thing I want to do is do a little test steps, like emulate what it would be like between two studs, so this is less than a common stud, we have 11 and a half, normally a span, if you have 16 in the center studs and you take the three quarters, you normally have like 14 and a half in a stud compartment, so This is narrower, but I'm just going to see If you both can hold on.

I'm going to set it up there and let's see, I weigh about 165 pounds. I know cameras can be deceiving, but I'm not a very big guy five eight 165 that's my fighting weight you're an inch shorter than I didn't know I think I'm shrinking too much unfortunately um so I'm going to put on all 165 pounds in the center here and I can't even get close, so that's what I mean, I barely put any weight on it and look what happened to that Kerdi board that you just bent, I mean, this material is so soft it's been one of my problems with the Kerdi board, they make other very good products but I have never made this before so I don't know what is going to happen with this.

I came up with this on my own, let's see how it will happen. He'll probably do the same, so this is already more pressure than I'm putting on the other guy, let's see if he can handle all my pressure. Whoa, I took all my blood pressure, holy cow, what a big difference, um, I'll do this again. just so you can see what the board does, but this makes me feel a lot better about using this, I mean you can tell by feeling it, you can see it's stronger when you cut it, but again, I'm just going to put a little bit. a little bit of pressure here and it just breaks okay so that's it so you see what happens as far as force between a stud again if it's in a wall you know unless someone you know maybe is drinking, falls against a wall or something. once you tile it, of course, it will harden.

What happens if you put a mosaic on it and a big guy falls against a wall with his elbow? You know, I don't know, I just like things to be louder. I mean, why not? If there is technology to make a stronger wall board that transports better, it doesn't do this. Why wouldn't you? So one of the other things that's different about the Kerdi board is that you need to use these washers. So it may not be a big deal, but it's an extra piece that you're going to need, so you know these washers, you stick them on the board and then you put the screw in so the screw doesn't come out all the way. through the board it gives you some surface like hydroban board you don't need the washers so you can go straight to the hydroban board without using those washers again because the surface is much stronger I mean it's hard you can just hear how hard which is this, you don't need to use these washers like you do with kerdi board, so it will save you time, it will save you an extra step, the only time you need a washer when making hydraulic band board is if I am going to make a roof, so again, this is...

I don't know what it's for. I'm going to put a heat gun here and we're going to pretend this is next to a steam vent or a fireplace, so this guy gets really hot, I don't know if you know what 212 degrees of steam feels like, but it probably is. So. I can hang in there without getting burned, let's put some heat in here and see what happens there. wow, now look, now it's starting to shrink and if I put more heat on it, let's see what it does, it really starts to shrink so you can see it's warped, it's actually turned, it's turned into something different, like melted marshmallows here um. but regardless of this it definitely wouldn't be a good tile substrate if it got hot and did, let's see if the Hydro Ban board does the same.

I think that hecore of the boards probably has the same compound chemical composition, I think it's just denser on the hydroband board with a stronger coating on the outside, yes, and I can already start to see it shrink there so you can see what's happening, with the heat gun again, we have melted marshmallows, it's not a good tile substrate, so Um, I'm just trying to show the limitations again. I don't know how much you should worry about this, but if you are making a fireplace, I definitely wouldn't use this on a fireplace and would be very cautious. a steam outlet wellDo it, okay, just for fun.

I'll see what happens if we turn it on. What happen dear? I understand you're a little busy, but you should take a minute. Well, with the boards again we ran into a problem where we were doing some plumbing and we had to firmly weld the board and we almost burned the house down because this material is very flammable, especially with the blowtorch and if you have a draft that raises a stud or a wall. you definitely need to be careful, so yeah, just a side note, it's very flammable, so there you go. I could probably continue doing a lot of things with these boards by playing with them, but actually my wife needs me from the beginning, so I have some questions to answer, so thanks for joining me.

I hope you enjoyed the video again. Leave your comment in the section below. What is your favorite wall board? Let me know and I'll try to try them too. again, last but not least, I love you guys, I love being your tile coach and I'll see you in the next video.