ceramic tile over tar & concrete floor

[Bluvertigo]

Removed old vinyl and sub floor from the basement rec. room. Discovered that half the room is covered with tar over concrete and the rest is plain concrete. Also the floor has many crators.

Any ideas as to how I would adhere tiles directly to the floor?

Your ideas would be greatly appreciated.

:)

[Ken_ver_1_5]

thats going to be hard to clean up.

I would look into putting down a sub floor.

[rileydog]

You may be able to use a self leveling compound, but i think you'll need to clean up the tar enough to put a good primer/sealer on it so the leveler will adhere.

read labels and ask at building center...but depending on the size of the area your doing--a sub-floor is probably the way to go.
I used SM E-Z Flow primer 100 for smooth painted concrete and it worked great.

[Bluvertigo]

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

[jovin]

It's going to be very difficult and likely impossible to get anything to adhere on the tar portion so that you can lay ceramic tiles on top. You need to remove the tar layer either chemically or mechanically or rebuild the subfloor. Maybe you can just cover the floor with 1/2" plywood screwed directly onto the concrete but you need to treat the cracks beforehand if they're large (hairline cracks are OK and commonplace on all concrete floors).

[Rustynut]

It's going to be very difficult and likely impossible to get anything to adhere on the tar portion so that you can lay ceramic tiles on top. You need to remove the tar layer either chemically or mechanically or rebuild the subfloor. Maybe you can just cover the floor with 1/2" plywood screwed directly onto the concrete but you need to treat the cracks beforehand if they're large (hairline cracks are OK and commonplace on all concrete floors).
I think if you were to screw anything down to the concrete, I would choose Cement board instead of plywood. Fill the joints and screws with grout then level the rest with the grout base and you should be good to lay Ceramic tile.
(provided you choose the Ceramic type of tile)
Plywood is fine for your garden variety vinyl tile, just be sure to place the Rough side of the plywood up for the glues to adhere to.