Do NOT buy NoMorePly

[RogerS]

DO NOT BUY NOMOREPLY. After a lifetime of renovation and building work this is up there at or near the top of the list for Worst Purchase, Why?

Very very hard. Requires a special blade in a track saw to cut it. No way can you score and snap like you can with Hardibacker or similar boards.
You have to buy their screws which are supposed to create their own hole - they don’t.
They are supposed to create their own countersink as you screw them in - they don’t.
They are expensive

So what is a simple method of fixing a waterproof board to tile onto - as provided by, for example, Hardibacker - has now morphed into a labour and machine intensive operation taking four times as long.

This stuff is pants and redefines Not Fit For Purpose

 

[Accipiter]

Thanks for the *review* of this stuff Rog... if I should come across it I'll avoid it

 

[Spectric]

Hey Roger, agree it is a bit of a PITA to work with but it cuts like butter if you use a PCD blade in a circular saw. Do it outside and wear a facemask and googles as it makes more dust than MDF, yes this stuff is worse than MDF .

You have to buy their screws which are supposed to create their own hole - they don’t.

I tried cement board screws from Timco but the NMP ones are better and you also need there goo. I have done our shower area with NMP having fully tanked it first and more recently a new wall to meet fire regulations for a woodburner and this involved many cuts with a lot at 22.5 degrees as the wall has two 45 degree angles. The screws can be a challenge, getting them started I found was the hard bit so using a 2mm Tc drill bit to make an initial mark followed by a small 4mm masonary drill to make just a crater before dring the screws home, don't use an impact driver or a hammer drill for drilling. The woodburner wall threw up a bigger challenge as the middle section was into steel studs and although they sell screws for this task they are really hopeless and instead I used 316 stainless counter sink screws with nuts and washers which worked well although time consuming. I bet you can see the next problem, the other side of the wall !!!! Here screws and nuts cannot be used as no access so had to use Rivnuts and this was really time consuming. I got through at least twenty Tc drill bits and fifteen cheap countersinks from Toolstation on this side.

 

[AndyT]

I know it's too late for some, but I had a very different experience using Marmox tile backing board. Stiff, lightweight, easy to cut and fix with ordinary tools.
I hope the mention is useful to someone.

 

[RogerS]

Hey Roger, agree it is a bit of a PITA to work with but it cuts like butter if you use a PCD blade in a circular saw. Do it outside and wear a facemask and googles as it makes more dust than MDF, yes this stuff is worse than MDF .


I tried cement board screws from Timco but the NMP ones are better and you also need there goo. I have done our shower area with NMP having fully tanked it first and more recently a new wall to meet fire regulations for a woodburner and this involved many cuts with a lot at 22.5 degrees as the wall has two 45 degree angles. The screws can be a challenge, getting them started I found was the hard bit so using a 2mm Tc drill bit to make an initial mark followed by a small 4mm masonary drill to make just a crater before dring the screws home, don't use an impact driver or a hammer drill for drilling. The woodburner wall threw up a bigger challenge as the middle section was into steel studs and although they sell screws for this task they are really hopeless and instead I used 316 stainless counter sink screws with nuts and washers which worked well although time consuming. I bet you can see the next problem, the other side of the wall !!!! Here screws and nuts cannot be used as no access so had to use Rivnuts and this was really time consuming. I got through at least twenty Tc drill bits and fifteen cheap countersinks from Toolstation on this side.

You've confirmed that NMP is best avoided.

 

[AndyT]

It's puzzling me how such different products survive and sell alongside each other.

I know I nearly bought some cement-based backer board which would have been much harder to work with in our small bathroom and much harder to carry upstairs. I only found the Marmox board because it was in stock at the local shop where we bought the tiles and I felt then that I'd had a lucky escape.

Do some of these boards have much better fire resistance or a higher U-value or some other advantage that makes them worth the struggle?

 

[Spectric]

Do some of these boards have much better fire resistance or a higher U-value or some other advantage that makes them worth the struggle?

The biggest use of these cement based boards is in wet areas like showers because they are not effected by prolonged exposure to damp unlike plaster board or MDF. Plasterboard is not fire rated at all, it cannot be used within a given distance of something like a woodburner so cement board is a good solution providing you do not have wood studs. None of these products are as easy to use as plasterboard or MDF but if you use them on a regular basis they become much easier to use, the local tile company guys could not see why I had any problems using NMP, they use it all the time but have all the tools and have got used to it.

 

[RogerS]

The biggest use of these cement based boards is in wet areas like showers because they are not effected by prolonged exposure to damp unlike plaster board or MDF. Plasterboard is not fire rated at all, it cannot be used within a given distance of something like a woodburner so cement board is a good solution providing you do not have wood studs. None of these products are as easy to use as plasterboard or MDF but if you use them on a regular basis they become much easier to use, the local tile company guys could not see why I had any problems using NMP, they use it all the time but have all the tools and have got used to it.

Perhaps. But my point is that there are many other cement boards out there which do exactly the same thing. Not just making life bloody difficult like NMP.

I can get used to a headache. It’s still cr*p

 

[fuse]

Absolutely agree re the screws,they are a con to fool you for a dubious warranty.
Hopeless

I put some Nmp down for a tile door threshold on wooden floorboards around eight years ago.
I cut the stuff with a masonry cutting disk and after the first two fails at fixing it down I drilled and countersunk the holes myself.
To be fair ,despite the badly designed screws,its withstood a lot of traffic and the grouting is still completely sound.

Amazon apologises about the photo quality

 

[Lons]

............ Plasterboard is not fire rated at all,....

Not 100% accurate in my experience..

Standard plasterboard has minimal rating but as part of a structure it can help satsify building regs fire rating conditions e.g. many times we were asked to double board a ceiling to increase the fire rating to the room above, those over a garage being most common. You can also buy fire rated plasterboard if you wish to provide 30 to 60 minutes from memory.

EDIT: I've just done a quick check and it's still available.

 

[Steve Maskery]

When I did my last workshop, all the ceiling was done with Fire Resistant Plaster Board, and quite bit of the walls too, as the supplier had run out of ordinary stuff, so they sent me more of the Pink.
S

 

[Mike G]

.....Plasterboard is not fire rated at all........

Careful! They very much ARE fire rated. You can easily achieve 30 min or 60 min fire resistance with plasterboard. Timber framed building would cease instantly if what you said were true.

 

[Spectric]

Not 100% accurate in my experience..

I should have said that plasterboard is not A1 fire rated, it is paper backed and is why it is not allowed under the HETAS regs for close proximity to a woodburner as it is classed as a combustable material. There is fire resistant plasterboard that has a 30 minute rating which is time to evacuate a building but not for long exposure times in a woodburner situation. The part that initially got me was that you cannot use wooden studs even if they are covered in cement board, luckily I had not started the job and took advice. The reason is something called Pyrolysis which in simple terms is where something like wood that is exposed to periods of heating can decompose into something that ignites at a lower temperature. Now go and watch some of these videos where Americans in Alaska are building log cabins and fitting woodburners with what looks like no restrictions and think about old English properties which had open fires and a wooden beam which have not burnt down over many centuries of use.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQFnoECCsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3RP5uz62ULTVC-_4WSREVP​

 

[Lons]

Roy
You stated that "plasterboard is not firerated at all" which was incorrect, misleading and very different to what your now saying. As Mike said you can achieve 30 or 60min fire rating with standard gypsum plasterboard. If it's acceptable to meet building regs then it's pretty concrete evidence. I've fitted it many times in the course of my business specifically to meet those regs.
Specific fire rated plasterboards have glassfibre added and a better rating.

Next to a woodburner is a different subject.

 

[AJB Temple]

Not come across No More Ply Rog. I've used cement board ever such a lot (bought in bulk) and it took me a while to realise that it is difficult to cut but special blades work a treat. My equivalent of your Festool is a Mafell and it takes a 4 tooth tungsten carbide blade that goes through any cement board like butter. Essential to use extraction.

All screwed to stud (insulated) but I just used ordinary Reisser screws, put into pre-drilled and countersunk holes. Much too hard to expect the screws to do it in my experience. Hope you found your lock washer. I don't think the mafell has one.