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Originally Posted by SIKSUKR
All good info from jmen.I'll take exception a little bit with this statement though.I did 2 of my bathrooms 10 years ago and installed the tile right on the plywood subfloor and have not any any cracks at all.They are small jobs at maybe 4x4 but have held up great.I did use a cementacious board when I tiled my shower however.fwiw
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You may have had some things working in your favor and plywood subfloor is one of them as well as size of tile section. The basis reasoning behind using a backer board or Ditra type material is that a lot of factors can work against the tile. Mainly, if the joists are undersized, they flex and bounce under weight; the plywood may be inferiorly installed not using a bead of glue to help stiffen the assembly or the subfloor may not be plywood at all. The backers eliminate all those issues (except the undersized joists, but we won't go down that road unless we have to) by bonding the sub-floor to the backer.
You are correct though, but in my case (professional remodeling company) I have a two year warranty period on our installation labor and materials, as well as the manufacturers warranty beyond that to protect the homeowner with down the road. We use a backer all the time (mostly because the tile manufacturers will not warranty an installation without it), but some situations would allow for it to be left out if you are doing it yourself.
My home for example using the old 1x subfloor and that requires some serious stiffening even after rescrewing all the boards to the joists.