TECH TALK –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– H.B. Fuller Construction Products introduces TEC® Ultimate 6 Plus Polymer Modified Mortar specifi- cally designed for installing gauged porcelain tile panels/slabs and large heavy tiles (LHT). TEC has devel- oped Ultimate 6 Plus Mortar to meet the particu- lar challenges of installing excep- tionally large thin tile panels and LHT on floors or walls. The new mortar offers extreme versatility. TEC Ultimate 6 Plus Mortar has a unique set of features that allows grouting in 6 hours – even when installed over the most impervi- ous substrates such as uncoupling membranes. Easy-to-use Ultimate 6 Plus Mortar has an extended pot life of two to three hours and open time of 50-60 minutes, allowing installers much-needed time to get full coverage and make adjust- ments. While this TEC mortar is formulated for gauged porcelain tile panels/slabs and LHT, it also works well on traditional tile for both floor and wall applications. TEC Ultimate 6 Plus Mortar exceeds ANSI A118.4TE and A118.11. www.tecspecialty.com. It was determined (and still is) that A118.4 has the desired mortar strength for installing porcelain tile. You with me so far? Realizing that human beings are incapable of 100% perfection at all times, the Tile Council of America (now TCNA) and ANSI deemed it permissible to allow only 80% cov- erage for most installations. This is cool, but the one factor missing is that the ANSI testing is performed with 100% coverage on the test samples. Oops! Now what? If 100% coverage yields 200 psi, then it might be safe to assume that 80% coverage would yield only 160 psi. Make sense? Okay, so now let’s improve our installation mor- tar upwards to the newer A 118.15 mortars that achieve 400 psi shears with porcelain. 80% coverage with this mortar would yield a 320 psi shear strength which is exactly twice as strong as what A118.4 mortar achieves. This could also mean that only a 40% coverage rate with an A118.15 mortar would equal the required A118.4 rate of 160 psi at 80%. What?? Am I suggesting that the rate of coverage be dropped to 40% minimums? Absolutely not! But what I am advocating is that if an installation has the tile edges and corners adequately supported and yet the coverage rate is some- thing less than 80% it is NOT nec- essarily a cause for failure, and the tile contractor should be given the 46 TileLetter | February 2018