need advice on laying ceramic tile!!

I've read so much on the internet about laying ceramic tile and the horror stories about it cracking that my head is spinning! But, living in the country and being a gardener, carpeting in the highest-traffic front room is just not working out. And laminates get too slippery when they are wet for my liking. So I've been looking into ceramic tile. Now I'm panicking about whether my floors are strong enough to support the tiles, and whether the tiles or grout will crack! The part of the house I'm doing is a doublewide manufactured, anchored on concrete runners so it isn't going anywhere. The seam where the two halves meet runs through the area I want to tile.
What I'm thinking of doing is laying down some sort of fiber-reinforced paper under the initial bed of mortar, to allow for slight movement of the subfloor without cracking. Is this a nutty idea? The home was built just before building standards dropped even more for mfg homes, in the early 90's, so I'm hoping we won't have to add more floor support, but would love to hear the thoughts of anyone who knows more about this. Obviously, sistering in support beams will add alot of complexity.
Even if someone could direct me to a really stellar source for information about this I'd be thrilled!

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Mary

Assuming there is no obvious movement or bounce in the floors and no water damage....

Make sure the the floor is at least 3/4" plywood or better, then lay 1/4" hardibacker down using construction adhesive and the hardibacker screws. Do whatever you need to so that the hardibacker screws are completely flush with the surface. They can't be sticking up, not even a little, or you'll have problems leveling the tile.

Given that there is a joint, I might skim coat the floor with latex modified mortar and embed fiberglass mesh joint tape on the hardibacker seams.

Use latex modified mortar to lay the tile -- it will allow for some slight movement. It's more expensive, but not as bad as doing it over (this from experience Very Happy

).

You could go with normal grout, which should work, or if you're paranoid you could go with epoxy grout. I've used the consumer-grade version of Spectralock on countertops and had great luck. Just follow the directions very carefully and it works great.

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Steve
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