Mastic VS. Thinset 4

I have been doing tile professionally for 20 years and while I have heard one salesman try to sell me a more expensive (no slip) thinset, I have used Mastic on every single shower I have ever done, which by the way, number close to 1000. I offer a 2 year guarantee on my work and not only have I never had a callback, I have never even heard of a single person having a problem with it. I will agree that when under water, mastic will re-emulsify, I have never seen or heard of it happening behind tile. I would never use it on a shower floor, but will continue to on the walls. I just tore out a shower recently that had 4x4 tile over sheetrock with mastic and I had to tear the sheetrock completely out, like usual, because the mastic held so well that the sheetrock broke before the mastic would let go, and the same over cement board. It is a story told by salesman to upgrade your purchase to some special,(non-slip) super duper platinum plus full flex latex modified mortar that also requires an add mixture. If you have a shower with this problem I suggest you either call a plumber to fix the plumbing leak behind the wall or, go buy some lotto tickets because the odds of this happening to you are about the same as winning the powerball lotto. Glue on, Mastic is lighter, cheaper, and easier to use and holds your tile in place far better than any super mud. Ask any old-timer, they would probably punch someone in the mouth if they were told you can't use mastic. I'm out

And the next time you have a shower to do, when you start the demo, try to chisel some tile off the wall and see how well the mastic holds up. I tried it after reading that crap about mastic not holding up in showers just to test it and the tile came off in tiny chips. And it just had a normal, sloppy, unsanded grout on the shower and sanded on the tub surround and it was held flawlessly.

I will give you this, I have seen people put tile on regular sheetrock and if there was an excessive amount of moisture in the sheetrock, the top layer of paper has let go, but when that happens, the mastic is still holding onto the tile. It's the sheetrock that fails. NOT THE MASTIC! And tile should never be installed over sheetrock anywhere that moisture may be. Unless it is green sheetrock.

[Edited by Tile Master on Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 9:40 pm EST]