Just like cold weather, hot weather also impacts the tiling big time. Absence of good amount of moisture in weather makes it difficult for tiling to get enough initial bonding strength due to various reasons. One needs to take care of surface preparation along with using suitable tile adhesive. Here are few tips from your beloved Cembo:

1. Get the surface thoroughly cleaned if not done already. 

Make the surface clean from dirt, grease, oil, dust, curing compounds, sealer, paint, scrap items etc... Have a visual inspection of surface to make sure everything is in place. Plumb and levels are to be checked and marked beforehand.

2. Curing of surface

It is must to have surface cured fully and dry.

3. Strength of surface

If the surface is not strong enough to lift the load of tiles along with adhesives then it will be a futile exercise to fix the tiles on the surface. In case of deficiency, re-work is necessary.

4. Pre-wetting

If plaster is not pre-wetted, it creates weak bonding with tiles attached to it through NSA (Non-Skid Tile Adhesive). Surface must be brought to surface saturated dry (SSD) condition when cement based tile adhesives are used to fix the tiles. It is must in hot weather as evaporation speeds up the drying process and makes it difficult to keep the surface in SSD condition for long. Hence, one should aim for smaller area to complete in hot conditions in one go.

5. Apply Back Tile Primer

One needs to be extra careful in hot conditions while using tile adhesives. Extremely smooth back surfaces of tiles with almost no porosity makes it more difficult for adhesive to provide bonding with walls in hot conditions. It is recommended to apply Cemseal's Cemtile Primer (back tile primer) to increase porosity of such smooth tiles to avoid failure of bond.

6. Pot life

In hot & dry conditions, pot life reduces significantly. It is observed that a few masons try to avoid making the mix frequently. Hence, they prepare the mix in bigger quantities. In summer or any other hot condition, pot life is obviously low resulting in drying of the mixture. To throw away would be costly and hence a cheaper yet quality-wise poor option gets exercised: pouring the additional water! This reduces the quality of the mix significantly and creates faultlines in the tiling system. One must avoid it. Ideal practice as prescribed in point #4 is: Aim for smaller area to cover in one go.

7. Exterior Installation

In hot weather, mortar gets dried quickly. And hence, while working outdoors, it is more necessary to start the work early in morning or late in evening to avoid scorching heat. Alternatively, if a shade can be prepared for full day tiling work, nothing like that! In some cases, addition of flexible waterproofing polymer like Cemseal NSA+, Cemseal SBR Superlatex or Cemseal Cemcrete is also added in order to provide more flexibility and stickiness to the mortar to use it for longer duration in summer outdoors.

All in all, a good surface preparation, covering smaller areas and selection of best material will save your day in hot & dry conditions. As they say, a stitch in time saves nine!