I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor? I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.
I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

Anything else I should watch out for?

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Cheers,
David.

On 16/07/2010 18:28 David Robinson wrote:

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I used ~60 boxes of tiles and used a £30 cheapo from Focus to do the
cuts without any problems.

--
F

On 16 July, 18:28, David Robinson
wrote:
I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor? I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.
I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

Anything else I should watch out for?

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Cheers,
David.

For the walls you need to screw an absolutely straight batten
horizontally just less than a tile width above the floor/bath
whatever Remove when tiles are set &cut tile to fit bottom row (which
will be variable.

For the floor you need to measure & decide whether the tiles need to
have a joint in the centre of the room or a tile on the centre. Once
again screw a straight batten to the floor (working from the middle to
the walls.
Essential in all cases to get that first row straight as any error
just gets worse as you proceed.

Walls & floor need to be absolutely flat or you end up with all sorts
of troubles.
The grout will cover quite a few sins!

On Jul 16, 6:28*pm, David Robinson
wrote:
I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

no more ply?

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

Theres a wiki page on them fwiw
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?..._cutter_review

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

stay away from cheap stuff in a bathroom. If you need to cut costs,
you can use cement on the walls.


Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

not too much, but best dont stuff them in there to begin with. Tiles
tend not to be perfectly identically dimensioned, so you need to allow
for some degree of variability in the gaps. Poke spacers in from the
front, and pull out once set.


What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor? I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.

Tile layouts look best when symmetrical.

I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

I'd fill a wall before moving on, but I'm not a expert tiler!

Anything else I should watch out for?

Floor flexing. Tiles really need a rigid base, and flexible adhesive
on wood floors


Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Cheers,
David.


NT

Having just done a load of tiling...

David Robinson
wibbled on Friday 16 July 2010 18:28

I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)


Get a Rubi lower end score'n'snap (or higher end if you're rich). Superb
machine for all the straight cuts

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I have the Erbauer as I had very few wet cuts to do. It's a simple crappy
machine that basically *just* works but will chip the tile edges very
slightly. Nothing a diamond file couldn't fix. It I had more wet cuts (like
doing slate or something) I'd have got a decent machine.

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

I grouted the corners using Mapei Keracolor grout powder and Fugolastic
additive - slightly flexible grout with mental adhesion.


Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

I used BAL Greenstar (Bluestar is similar) premixed for the walls as they
are solid. It was easy to work with and for wall tiling I just couldn't be
arsed to mix adhesive from powder - I would recommend BAL.

For the floor, I used Mapei Kerabond with Isolatic additive to get a class
S2 flexible which is what you should be aiming for. There are powders that
can be mixed with water that are flexible too. Tile Giant sell a wide range
of Mapei products, but I'd certainly go with BAL or Mapei for this as it is
a demanding application. So in short I would use different adhesives for
wall and floor, using the less hassle-some tub mix for the wall.

Grout - the one I mentioned was rated for both applications and supported a
wide range of gap sizes so I stuck with the one product.

I wouldn't use a pre mixed grout - especially not a crap one.

Get some grout sealer ready too. There's Lithofin paint on which is sworn by
by some here. I used SealGuard spray on on the recommendation of the pro
tiler who did my slate floor in the kitchen. When that ran out I used LTP
Grout and Tile Protector spray which AFAICT is the safe stuff. Easy to
apply, overspray doesn't show but it stinks like buggery (organic solvents)
so choose a day you can open all the doors.

Do apply as soon as possible.

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

I stick then in by one leg then pull them out as I go (eg I have about 3
rows of tiles up the wall with spacers, then for row 4 I start recycling
them from row 1). BAL Greenstar has such a good "grab" that you don;t need
any technically - tile goes on, tile stays on, tile can be tweaked for about
10 minutes +/- if necessary. But I do use spacers just to keep an eye on teh
gap. Sometimes I won;t use a spacer if a row or one tile needs a slightly
smaller gap.

I did find a self levelling line laser most useful, but ruling some guide
lines on in pencil would work (say every 3 rows and columns) - avoids
cumulative error that can happen from relying on spacers alone.

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor?

Either. Wall tiling isn't half as messy IMO as floor tiling. The grout
droppings are easily wiped up. If you do the wall first, I would leave out
the bottom row, so the floor tiles can go under rather than around the wall
tiles. I would however grout the floor first. Trying to scrape out dropped
grout from the gaps would be a PITA. But if the floor is grouted, it's easy
to wipe up.

I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.

I star at the 2nd row, allowing teh bottom to be trimmed in. Unless your
floor is so dead level that a whole tile would work.

Also I prefer a whole tile to the bath rim so that forced me to have a 3/4
tile on the floor.

I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

Short walls, I did a row at a time and applied enough adhesive to the wall
for about 3 rows - that suited the "life" of the adhesive.

For one long wall, I did it in 3 column-batches and with teh laser (or
pencil lines) you wouldn't know.


Anything else I should watch out for?

Yes. Pre plan so you don;t end up with a silly 1cm bit of tile down one edge
of a wall. It's better to have 2 half-ish tiles at each end.

Blanket/sheets in the bath in case you drop one. Also prevents your feet
grinding slightly abrasive adhesive or grout into the bath and damaging the
finish (esp. acrylic baths).

Wash your clothes and the sheets after each day - last thing you want is to
step on a hard lump and grind that into the plastic!

You'll need a nice rubber type float for grouting, a decent tiler's sponge
(OK I used the B&Q one and it was OK). And I found an open mesh "scourer" on
a backing board with handle a most excellent way to finish the grout. I'll
have to find out where I got it.

See my thread on grouting - I learnt something this week that may be of
help.

Read the data sheet for the

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Ditto!

Cheers,
David.

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

Tim Watts
wibbled on Friday 16 July 2010 19:28


Read the data sheet for the grout and adhesives - they tell you the
timings you can expect - eg sponge grout after 20 minutes, or floor adhesive
has a pot life of 20 minutes or 2 hours (I've used both - Kerabond was fine
and a bucket load would last for ages. Keraquik however was a ******* - mix
bucket, use bucket as fast as possible before it sets. Mind you, you could
walk on the tiles in about an hour.


--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

On 16/07/2010 19:29 Cicero wrote:

An electric cutter with a water bath can be very messy so try to do your
cutting outside if you want to avoid the cleaning.

And try to avoid February inside a garage with the door wide open...

--
F

On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:09:24 -0700 (PDT), harry wrote:

For the walls you need to screw an absolutely straight batten
horizontally just less than a tile width above the floor/bath whatever
Remove when tiles are set &cut tile to fit bottom row (which will be
variable.

Hopefully the bath would have been fitted level, so the batten can be
fixed tile height + grout line + tile to bath space above the top of
the bath. Tile the wall, remove batten fit row of full tiles in gap.
No uglyness with part cut tiles. Along the floor line may well be
different, is there to be a skirting? If there is scribe the lower
edge of that to the floor such the the top of the skirting is
straight and level.

Getting the first row straight and level is crucial, trouble is with
most rooms if you have each individual wall level it's almost
certainly guranteed that the horizontal grount lines won't match when
you complete around the room. A rotating laser level and making the
horizontals work with fittings (the bath, windows etc) means that the
horizontal grout lines will match around the room even if they aren't
exactly level on a given wall. One has to be sensible though, a lot
is down to careful planning and thought before you start marking out
and definaitely before you take adhesive to wall.

Remember you can make grout lines slightly larger or smaller over
several joins to make things line up perfectly or better. Again don't
go mad and don't suddenly change the grout width.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:06:20 +0200, F news@nowhere wrote:

On 16/07/2010 19:29 Cicero wrote:

An electric cutter with a water bath can be very messy so try to do your
cutting outside if you want to avoid the cleaning.

And try to avoid February inside a garage with the door wide open...



I chose May/June outside wearing oilskins!

I used a Wickes badged (wet bath) electric cutter when we tiled our
kitchen walls and floor. I started off with the blade that came with the
machine but soon realised that it was not up to handling the exceptionally
hard porcelain floor tiles we had chosen - £35 investment in a Macrist
blade solved the problem and was well worth it. From memory we damaged
just one tile due to cracking/chipping and that was during the removal of
a sliver of one edge. I became reasonably adept, even cutting square and
oblong holes in the centre of tiles to receive sockets and switches.

--
rbel

On 16 July, 19:28, Tim Watts wrote:
Having just done a load of tiling...

David Robinson
* wibbled on Friday 16 July 2010 18:28

I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

Get a Rubi lower end score'n'snap (or higher end if you're rich). Superb
machine for all the straight cuts

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I have the Erbauer as I had very few wet cuts to do. It's a simple crappy
machine that basically *just* works but will chip the tile edges very
slightly. Nothing a diamond file couldn't fix. It I had more wet cuts (like
doing slate or something) I'd have got a decent machine.

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

I grouted the corners using Mapei Keracolor grout powder and Fugolastic
additive - slightly flexible grout with mental adhesion.



Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

I used BAL Greenstar (Bluestar is similar) premixed for the walls as they
are solid. It was easy to work with and for wall tiling I just couldn't be
arsed to mix adhesive from powder - I would recommend BAL.

For the floor, I used Mapei Kerabond with Isolatic additive to get a class
S2 flexible which is what you should be aiming for. There are powders that
can be mixed with water that are flexible too. Tile Giant sell a wide range
of Mapei products, but I'd certainly go with BAL or Mapei for this as it is
a demanding application. So in short I would use different adhesives for
wall and floor, using the less hassle-some tub mix for the wall.

Grout - the one I mentioned was rated for both applications and supported a
wide range of gap sizes so I stuck with the one product.

I wouldn't use a pre mixed grout - especially not a crap one.

Get some grout sealer ready too. There's Lithofin paint on which is sworn by
by some here. I used SealGuard spray on on the recommendation of the pro
tiler who did my slate floor in the kitchen. When that ran out I used LTP
Grout and Tile Protector spray which AFAICT is the safe stuff. Easy to
apply, overspray doesn't show but it stinks like buggery (organic solvents)
so choose a day you can open all the doors.

Do apply as soon as possible.

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

I stick then in by one leg then pull them out as I go (eg I have about 3
rows of tiles up the wall with spacers, then for row 4 I start recycling
them from row 1). BAL Greenstar has such a good "grab" that you don;t need
any technically - tile goes on, tile stays on, tile can be tweaked for about
10 minutes +/- if necessary. But I do use spacers just to keep an eye on teh
gap. Sometimes I won;t use a spacer if a row or one tile needs a slightly
smaller gap.

I did find a self levelling line laser most useful, but ruling some guide
lines on in pencil would work (say every 3 rows and columns) - avoids
cumulative error that can happen from relying on spacers alone.

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor?

Either. Wall tiling isn't half as messy IMO as floor tiling. The grout
droppings are easily wiped up. If you do the wall first, I would leave out
the bottom row, so the floor tiles can go under rather than around the wall
tiles. I would however grout the floor first. Trying to scrape out dropped
grout from the gaps would be a PITA. But if the floor is grouted, it's easy
to wipe up.

I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.

I star at the 2nd row, allowing teh bottom to be trimmed in. Unless your
floor is so dead level that a whole tile would work.

Also I prefer a whole tile to the bath rim so that forced me to have a 3/4
tile on the floor.

I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

Short walls, I did a row at a time and applied enough adhesive to the wall
for about 3 rows - that suited the "life" of the adhesive.

For one long wall, I did it in 3 column-batches and with teh laser (or
pencil lines) you wouldn't know.



Anything else I should watch out for?

Yes. Pre plan so you don;t end up with a silly 1cm bit of tile down one edge
of a wall. It's better to have 2 half-ish tiles at each end.

Blanket/sheets in the bath in case you drop one. Also prevents your feet
grinding slightly abrasive adhesive or grout into the bath and damaging the
finish (esp. acrylic baths).

Wash your clothes and the sheets after each day - last thing you want is to
step on a hard lump and grind that into the plastic!

You'll need a nice rubber type float for grouting, a decent tiler's sponge
(OK I used the B&Q one and it was OK). And I found an open mesh "scourer" on
a backing board with handle a most excellent way to finish the grout. I'll
have to find out where I got it.

See my thread on grouting - I learnt something this week that may be of
help.

Read the data sheet for the

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Ditto!

Thank you Tim, and thank you all.

A plan is forming. Annoyingly I can't avoid a silly small cut tile at
either the corner, or the window Never mind.

Just found out that I've unwittingly bought porcelain tiles for the en
suite walls. Floor tiles (and wall+floor tiles for bathroom) are
ceramic (despite "matching"!). En suite wall tiles are also big +
heavy (500x330mm).

Two more quick questions...

How do people decide what size tile spacers to use?

Do people make the wall and floor tiles correspond in any way? i.e.
try to make joins match? I can't see that they will (or even can, in
the case where the tiles are different sizes!). Diamonds or squares on
a floor?

If all this is purely aesthetic, I'll ask the boss!

Cheers,
David.

On 17 July, 19:49, rbel wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:06:20 +0200, F news@nowhere wrote:
On 16/07/2010 19:29 Cicero wrote:

An electric cutter with a water bath can be very messy so try to do your
cutting outside if you want to avoid the cleaning.

And try to avoid February inside a garage with the door wide open...

I chose May/June outside wearing oilskins!

LOL;)
I found an apron of bubble wrap and parcel tape did the biz for me -
very grim otherwise after 10mins....

Cheers
Jim K

On 17 July, 22:31, David Robinson
wrote:
On 16 July, 19:28, Tim Watts wrote:



Having just done a load of tiling...

David Robinson
wibbled on Friday 16 July 2010 18:28

I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

Get a Rubi lower end score'n'snap (or higher end if you're rich). Superb
machine for all the straight cuts

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no
more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

I have the Erbauer as I had very few wet cuts to do. It's a simple crappy
machine that basically *just* works but will chip the tile edges very
slightly. Nothing a diamond file couldn't fix. It I had more wet cuts (like
doing slate or something) I'd have got a decent machine.

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

I grouted the corners using Mapei Keracolor grout powder and Fugolastic
additive - slightly flexible grout with mental adhesion.

Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

I used BAL Greenstar (Bluestar is similar) premixed for the walls as they
are solid. It was easy to work with and for wall tiling I just couldn't be
arsed to mix adhesive from powder - I would recommend BAL.

For the floor, I used Mapei Kerabond with Isolatic additive to get a class
S2 flexible which is what you should be aiming for. There are powders that
can be mixed with water that are flexible too. Tile Giant sell a wide range
of Mapei products, but I'd certainly go with BAL or Mapei for this as it is
a demanding application. So in short I would use different adhesives for
wall and floor, using the less hassle-some tub mix for the wall.

Grout - the one I mentioned was rated for both applications and supported a
wide range of gap sizes so I stuck with the one product.

I wouldn't use a pre mixed grout - especially not a crap one.

Get some grout sealer ready too. There's Lithofin paint on which is sworn by
by some here. I used SealGuard spray on on the recommendation of the pro
tiler who did my slate floor in the kitchen. When that ran out I used LTP
Grout and Tile Protector spray which AFAICT is the safe stuff. Easy to
apply, overspray doesn't show but it stinks like buggery (organic solvents)
so choose a day you can open all the doors.

Do apply as soon as possible.

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

I stick then in by one leg then pull them out as I go (eg I have about 3
rows of tiles up the wall with spacers, then for row 4 I start recycling
them from row 1). BAL Greenstar has such a good "grab" that you don;t need
any technically - tile goes on, tile stays on, tile can be tweaked for about
10 minutes +/- if necessary. But I do use spacers just to keep an eye on teh
gap. Sometimes I won;t use a spacer if a row or one tile needs a slightly
smaller gap.

I did find a self levelling line laser most useful, but ruling some guide
lines on in pencil would work (say every 3 rows and columns) - avoids
cumulative error that can happen from relying on spacers alone.

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor?

Either. Wall tiling isn't half as messy IMO as floor tiling. The grout
droppings are easily wiped up. If you do the wall first, I would leave out
the bottom row, so the floor tiles can go under rather than around the wall
tiles. I would however grout the floor first. Trying to scrape out dropped
grout from the gaps would be a PITA. But if the floor is grouted, it's easy
to wipe up.

I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.

I star at the 2nd row, allowing teh bottom to be trimmed in. Unless your
floor is so dead level that a whole tile would work.

Also I prefer a whole tile to the bath rim so that forced me to have a 3/4
tile on the floor.

I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

Short walls, I did a row at a time and applied enough adhesive to the wall
for about 3 rows - that suited the "life" of the adhesive.

For one long wall, I did it in 3 column-batches and with teh laser (or
pencil lines) you wouldn't know.

Anything else I should watch out for?

Yes. Pre plan so you don;t end up with a silly 1cm bit of tile down one edge
of a wall. It's better to have 2 half-ish tiles at each end.

Blanket/sheets in the bath in case you drop one. Also prevents your feet
grinding slightly abrasive adhesive or grout into the bath and damaging the
finish (esp. acrylic baths).

Wash your clothes and the sheets after each day - last thing you want is to
step on a hard lump and grind that into the plastic!

You'll need a nice rubber type float for grouting, a decent tiler's sponge
(OK I used the B&Q one and it was OK). And I found an open mesh "scourer" on
a backing board with handle a most excellent way to finish the grout. I'll
have to find out where I got it.

See my thread on grouting - I learnt something this week that may be of
help.

Read the data sheet for the

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Ditto!

Thank you Tim, and thank you all.

A plan is forming. Annoyingly I can't avoid a silly small cut tile at
either the corner, or the window Never mind.

Just found out that I've unwittingly bought porcelain tiles for the en
suite walls. Floor tiles (and wall+floor tiles for bathroom) are
ceramic (despite "matching"!). En suite wall tiles are also big +
heavy (500x330mm).

Two more quick questions...

How do people decide what size tile spacers to use?

if the tiles are very straight and true (or rectified) you can go
thinner - generally ceramics 2mm wall, upto 4/5 mm floor. Dry lay a
few and see how they line up /deviate from what you expect?

Do people make the wall and floor tiles correspond in any way? i.e.
try to make joins match? I can't see that they will (or even can, in
the case where the tiles are different sizes!).

IMHO unless the room is "Square" and the wall &floor tiles identically
sized, you're on a hiding to nothing trying to match walls to floor
spacings....it just won;t work and you'll be SO Ped off you bothered
to try....

Diamonds or squares on
a floor?

diamonds maybe more cuts but upto Aesthetics Management in the end...

Cheer
Jim K

David Robinson
wibbled on Saturday 17 July 2010 22:31

On 16 July, 19:28, Tim Watts wrote:


I grouted the corners using Mapei Keracolor grout powder and Fugolastic
additive - slightly flexible grout with mental adhesion.

BTW - I hand mixed (SS metal bowl + wooden spoon worked well), this grout
spoon mixes very nicely without trouble. But it is *very* sensitive to
ratios. I found an old food container that help 1kg power, then used another
container on the kitchen scales to measure 300g liquid (it's 100:30 ration
in the sheet). It starts off not much stiffer than double cream, but after
the 2 mins rest and restir has thickened up a lot. It then stiffens further
as you work over a 20 minute period which is the most you want to do before
a sponge off and grout finish.

Don't try to mix by eye until you've mixed by measurement - it takes time to
get used to it (probably true of most of the products). You can dash a
couple of tablespoons of extra powder or teaspoons of liquid in to tweak it
if required.

1kg powder gives a nice amount that reasonably swift but not looney working
will use up. New grout (well this stuff) blends to dried grout
beautifully[1] so it's best to deal with what's on the wall after 20 mins
max, get it perfect. Don;t try to clean the tiles of milky haze yet, just
get the lumps off and the grout recessed as you wish. Do another gentle wash
down about 40-60 mins later, ie quick wipe with uber clean water just before
you finish the 2nd batch that you just splatted in.

[1] I used white - might be more problems with the coloured stuff so beware.

An hour or two (max) after you finish the wall, dry buff the lot.

Thank you Tim, and thank you all.

A plan is forming. Annoyingly I can't avoid a silly small cut tile at
either the corner, or the window Never mind.

as long as you've looked, there'll often a few - you just want to minimise
it where possible for your sanity - and final look.

TBH white tiles and white grout obscure most visual weirdnesses. Strong
contrasts in colour will accentuate.

Are you going to use white grout and coloured tiles, or a similar coloured
grout? BTW - Mapei do a range of silicones (Mapeisil IIRC) that match a
subset of the Keracolor grouts which is handy and their silicone handles
very nicely.


Just found out that I've unwittingly bought porcelain tiles for the en
suite walls.

That's score'n'snap out then?

Floor tiles (and wall+floor tiles for bathroom) are
ceramic (despite "matching"!). En suite wall tiles are also big +
heavy (500x330mm).

Right - you want a really good high grab adhesive. I would consider
Green/Bluestar but read the data sheet grab. There are more optimised
products for large tiles. Greenstar will hold them fine once dry but it
would be nice if they behaved whilst you're sticking them on.

Check BAL and Mapei's website - if there is something that's better, I
suggest considering it - and wait for any other advice here.

Get SWMBO and take 2 tiles and try them dry next to each other over the
wall. That will tell you if you can expect any problems lining them up and
whether you can get away with the minimum adhesive thickness or whether you
need more bed to allow adjustment. You'll obviously have to make this
decision in order to decide what slot depth on the trowel to buy. I used a
4mm trowell but my tiles were small and the walls good enough and I wasn't
seeking perfect flatness.

I used a much corser trowel on the floor so I could tweak the tiles and get
them dead flat, especially where it really mattered like under the loo.

I can't remember if you said the walls were newly plastered - if so, BAL
recommend priming any polished new plaster with dilute SBR which I did. I
also scratched the polish with a wire brush first. This would be perhaps
more prudent in the wetroom and showers.

Two more quick questions...

How do people decide what size tile spacers to use?

It's a matter of taste, though erring on smaller is usually better IME than
erring too big. If the tiles have bevelled edges the grout line looks bigger
than the gap - which I didn't appreciate until I'd laid some. 2-3mm of the
wall is a generally safe bet but your design might call for larger, though
this makes grout finishing a little more difficult.

The pro who did my slate floor used surprisingly small gaps - about 2-3mm
which I didn't expect - but they look good so I guess he knew what he was
doing.

Do people make the wall and floor tiles correspond in any way? i.e.
try to make joins match? I can't see that they will (or even can, in
the case where the tiles are different sizes!). Diamonds or squares on
a floor?

I didn't. It will make life harder if you try because you'll have to do it
everywhere which might be difficult one end of the room to another. Safer
IMHO to deliberately make it look like there is no intended alignment.

If all this is purely aesthetic, I'll ask the boss!

This is usuall (IME) where the boss excels. As long as you make any
technical constraints clear and do not give in if it will break the job or
make it 100 times harder, let her come up with the general artistic stuff.

I found it useful to draw marks on the wall to show where tile tops (for
half tiled walls) and patterns would go. Then she can tweak them.

My SWMBO chose the colours and tiles (working to a nice-and-quality-but-at-
a-sensible-price constraint) and came up with the patterns once I'd
specified that she shalt use =15cm tiles (I knew bigger tiles would be
troublesome here for technical reasons - though using 10cm tiles did mean
I've laid nearly 1000 of the buggers in a small room!), must be ceramic for
walls and definitely no bloody travertine (that took some arguing but I
refused to shift - I hate the stuff, too much like swiss cheese and too
pourous) ;-

Once I'd worked out the general constraints, she came and helped pencil up
the walls for where the tops finished, where the patterns went and stuff
like that.

The result was that with a general lack of modesty, I do feel I've done the
walls like a pro (albeit at 1/10th of the speed!) and she agrees. I'm not a
pro so I choose easier materials to work with where possible.

I could have done the floor better, but it was my first floor. The tiles are
perfect but I over rubbed the grout and had perhaps a little too large a gap
too. I also failed to have sealant at hand so they got grubby fast.

Yesterday I went over with another layer of grout and brought it just under
flush and sealed it it twice, immediately. You're not really supposed to
grout over grout, but I'll probably get away with it as it's a low traffic
area and the Keracolor + fugolastic is very adhesive stuff. It looks cool
now and if it goes tits up down the line, it's not too much to cut out the 3
or so linear metres with the Fein and redo.

HTH

Tim


--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:31:03 -0700 (PDT), David Robinson wrote:

A plan is forming. Annoyingly I can't avoid a silly small cut tile at
either the corner, or the window Never mind.

Bung it in the corner rather than the window.

En suite wall tiles are also big + heavy (500x330mm).

And expensive being porcelain no doubt. Hope the walls are really
flat and you get the adhesive on evenly. I can envisage it being
rather to easy to push just a bit too hard on one end and... crack.
B-(

How do people decide what size tile spacers to use?

What looks good, with big tiles and contrasting grout the grout also
becomes a feature so can be larger say up to 5mm with those big
tiles.

Do people make the wall and floor tiles correspond in any way? i.e.
try to make joins match?

If it's likely to be possible with the sizes of the tiles in question
then yes. The kitchen has a band of 100mm glass tiles with strips
150mm long below, the main tiles being 150mm. This means that the
grout lines will line up at a repeat so I have arranged them so they
do:

jtttttttttttttttjtttttttttttttttj
jggggggggggjggggggggggjgggggggggj
sssssssssssssssjssssssssssssssjsssssssssssssss
jtttttttttttttttjtttttttttttttttj


j - joint
g - glass tile
t - main tile
s - strip

If you have 330 and 150 you are a bit stuffed, I think the
coincidence repeat will be every 11th large tile? 330/(330-(150*2))
or every 3.63 metres (not including grout...). I might try and make
an alignment or symmetrical mismatch where you eye is attracted to at
the junction between the two tiles but even that would depend on what
knock on effects doing so would have.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 18 July, 00:03, Tim Watts wrote:
David Robinson
* wibbled on Saturday 17 July 2010 22:31

On 16 July, 19:28, Tim Watts wrote:

I grouted the corners using Mapei Keracolor grout powder and Fugolastic
additive - slightly flexible grout with mental adhesion.

BTW - I hand mixed (SS metal bowl + wooden spoon worked well), this grout
spoon mixes very nicely without trouble. But it is *very* sensitive to
ratios. I found an old food container that help 1kg power, then used another
container on the kitchen scales to measure 300g liquid (it's 100:30 ration
in the sheet). It starts off not much stiffer than double cream, but after
the 2 mins rest and restir has thickened up a lot. It then stiffens further
as you work over a 20 minute period which is the most you want to do before
a sponge off and grout finish.

Don't try to mix by eye until you've mixed by measurement - it takes time to
get used to it (probably true of most of the products). You can dash a
couple of tablespoons of extra powder or teaspoons of liquid in to tweak it
if required.

1kg powder gives a nice amount that reasonably swift but not looney working
will use up. New grout (well this stuff) blends to dried grout
beautifully[1] so it's best to deal with what's on the wall after 20 mins
max, get it perfect. Don;t try to clean the tiles of milky haze yet, just
get the lumps off and the grout recessed as you wish. Do another gentle wash
down about 40-60 mins later, ie quick wipe with uber clean water just before
you finish the 2nd batch that you just splatted in.

[1] I used white - might be more problems with the coloured stuff so beware.

An hour or two (max) after you finish the wall, dry buff the lot.

Thank you Tim, and thank you all.

A plan is forming. Annoyingly I can't avoid a silly small cut tile at
either the corner, or the window Never mind.

as long as you've looked, there'll often a few - you just want to minimise
it where possible for your sanity - and final look.

TBH white tiles and white grout obscure most visual weirdnesses. Strong
contrasts in colour will accentuate.

Are you going to use white grout and coloured tiles, or a similar coloured
grout? BTW - Mapei do a range of silicones (Mapeisil IIRC) that match a
subset of the Keracolor grouts which is handy and their silicone handles
very nicely.



Just found out that I've unwittingly bought porcelain tiles for the en
suite walls.

That's score'n'snap out then?

Floor tiles (and wall+floor tiles for bathroom) are
ceramic (despite "matching"!). En suite wall tiles are also big +
heavy (500x330mm).

Right - you want a really good high grab adhesive. I would consider
Green/Bluestar but read the data sheet grab. There are more optimised
products for large tiles. Greenstar will hold them fine once dry but it
would be nice if they behaved whilst you're sticking them on.

Check BAL and Mapei's website - if there is something that's better, I
suggest considering it - and wait for any other advice here.

Get SWMBO and take 2 tiles and try them dry next to each other over the
wall. That will tell you if you can expect any problems lining them up and
whether you can get away with the minimum adhesive thickness or whether you
need more bed to allow adjustment. You'll obviously have to make this
decision in order to decide what slot depth on the trowel to buy. I used a
4mm trowell but my tiles were small and the walls good enough and I wasn't
seeking perfect flatness.

I used a much corser trowel on the floor so I could tweak the tiles and get
them dead flat, especially where it really mattered like under the loo.

I can't remember if you said the walls were newly plastered - if so, BAL
recommend priming any polished new plaster with dilute SBR which I did. I
also scratched the polish with a wire brush first. This would be perhaps
more prudent in the wetroom and showers.

Two more quick questions...

How do people decide what size tile spacers to use?

It's a matter of taste, though erring on smaller is usually better IME than
erring too big. If the tiles have bevelled edges the grout line looks bigger
than the gap - which I didn't appreciate until I'd laid some. 2-3mm of the
wall is a generally safe bet but your design might call for larger, though
this makes grout finishing a little more difficult.

The pro who did my slate floor used surprisingly small gaps - about 2-3mm
which I didn't expect - but they look good so I guess he knew what he was
doing.

Do people make the wall and floor tiles correspond in any way? i.e.
try to make joins match? I can't see that they will (or even can, in
the case where the tiles are different sizes!). Diamonds or squares on
a floor?

I didn't. It will make life harder if you try because you'll have to do it
everywhere which might be difficult one end of the room to another. Safer
IMHO to deliberately make it look like there is no intended alignment.

If all this is purely aesthetic, I'll ask the boss!

This is usuall (IME) where the boss excels. As long as you make any
technical constraints clear and do not give in if it will break the job or
make it 100 times harder, let her come up with the general artistic stuff..

I found it useful to draw marks on the wall to show where tile tops (for
half tiled walls) and patterns would go. Then she can tweak them.

My SWMBO chose the colours and tiles (working to a nice-and-quality-but-at-
a-sensible-price constraint) and came up with the patterns once I'd
specified that she shalt use =15cm tiles (I knew bigger tiles would be
troublesome here for technical reasons - though using 10cm tiles did mean
I've laid nearly 1000 of the buggers in a small room!), must be ceramic for
walls and definitely no bloody travertine (that took some arguing but I
refused to shift - I hate the stuff, too much like swiss cheese and too
pourous) ;-

Once I'd worked out the general constraints, she came and helped pencil up
the walls for where the tops finished, where the patterns went and stuff
like that.

The result was that with a general lack of modesty, I do feel I've done the
walls like a pro (albeit at 1/10th of the speed!) and she agrees. I'm not a
pro so I choose easier materials to work with where possible.

I could have done the floor better, but it was my first floor. The tiles are
perfect but I over rubbed the grout and had perhaps a little too large a gap
too. I *also failed to have sealant at hand so they got grubby fast.

Yesterday I went over with another layer of grout and brought it just under
flush and sealed it it twice, immediately. You're not really supposed to
grout over grout, but I'll probably get away with it as it's a low traffic
area and the Keracolor + fugolastic is very adhesive stuff. It looks cool
now and if it goes tits up down the line, it's not too much to cut out the 3
or so linear metres with the Fein and redo.

HTH

Tim

I'm printing all this out so I can refer to it as I go along!

Another question: in the corners (and floor / wall joint, and tile/
bath joint) I'm intending to use silicone. Do I leave a small gap
between the tiles to fit this in, or butt them up and put silicone on
top?

TIA!

Cheers,
David.

On 18 July, 01:35, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

And expensive being porcelain no doubt.

Not really, £15/m2 from Focus DIY. Makes me wonder if the packet is
lying!

I've tried the "does water soak in" test and the "does striking it
with a metal object mark it spark" test. Water doesn't soak in, but
the metal object doesn't spark either. For the sake of them not
falling off the wall, I'll believe the packaging, unless something
proves otherwise.

Cheers,
David.

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:03:44 -0700 (PDT), David Robinson wrote:

I've tried the "does water soak in" test and the "does striking it
with a metal object mark it spark" test. Water doesn't soak in, but
the metal object doesn't spark either.

What was the metal? Brass won't spark for instance... Not really sure
what would be a conclusive metal to use iron/steel but probably not
stainless steel.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:47:48 -0700 (PDT), David Robinson wrote:

Another question: in the corners (and floor / wall joint, and tile/
bath joint) I'm intending to use silicone. Do I leave a small gap
between the tiles to fit this in, or butt them up and put silicone on
top?

Small gap, when you apply the silicone ensure it fills that gap. If
nothing else it allows for movement without putting strain on
anything. I think you're already aware to fill the bath with water
when doing the edges around that and leave it full until the silcone
has cured.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 16 July, 19:16, NT wrote:
On Jul 16, 6:28*pm, David Robinson
wrote:

I'm going to tile my bathroom and en suite. This will be my first
attempt at tiling. Any advice? ;-)

The plan is to make the floorboards as secure as possible, put "no more ply" down on the floor, and tile on top of that.

no more ply?

http://www.nomoreply.net/overboarding%20TIMBER.htm

Like Hardibacker.

Found it here...
http://www.tilersmerchants.co.uk/Til...s-No-More-Ply/
....amongst other places. Anyone used them? They don't list a postal
address under their contact details, which always makes me suspicious.

Cheers,
David.



The walls are mostly newly plastered.

I'm looking at getting a reasonable electric tile cutter, so I can do
straight cuts and L-shapes around the window (also, later, L-shapes
around the sockets in the kitchen). I can't find the previous
suggested models any more - any current suggestions?

Theres a wiki page on them fwiwhttp://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Tile_cutter_review

I'm planning to use silicone at the corners and around the bath
(leaving the bath full of water before+after doing this). How big a
gap should I leave at the internal corners of the room for silicone +
movement?

Can I use the same flexible adhesive and grouting for the floor and
walls? Any particular brands good but not-too-expensive? Or better to
use cheaper for walls than floor?

stay away from cheap stuff in a bathroom. If you need to cut costs,
you can use cement on the walls.

Some people seem to leave tile spacers in behind grouting, others seem
to take them out before grouting - does it matter? What's best?

not too much, but best dont stuff them in there to begin with. Tiles
tend not to be perfectly identically dimensioned, so you need to allow
for some degree of variability in the gaps. Poke spacers in from the
front, and pull out once set.

What's the best order to do this - walls first, or floor? I was
planning to start near the bottom and work up, but found one on-line
guide that suggested starting in the middle - sounds strange to me.

Tile layouts look best when symmetrical.

I'm going to tile after the bath has gone in, but before the basin+WC.
Do you do a whole row at a time, or a row on one wall at a time, that
whole wall, and then start on another one?

I'd fill a wall before moving on, but I'm not a expert tiler!

Anything else I should watch out for?

Floor flexing. Tiles really need a rigid base, and flexible adhesive
on wood floors

Many thanks in advance. My house is already far better than it would
otherwise be thanks to help from this group!

Cheers,
David.

NT

David Robinson
wibbled on Sunday 18 July 2010 22:47


I'm printing all this out so I can refer to it as I go along!

You might want to type it up into a summary document

And do vet it - one of us (me included) might be talking doobries, so do
give more weight to things where more than one person agrees

Another question: in the corners (and floor / wall joint, and tile/
bath joint) I'm intending to use silicone. Do I leave a small gap
between the tiles to fit this in, or butt them up and put silicone on
top?

Gap - absolutely. About 4mm. A bead on the surface is apt to fall off. A
bead in a gap can suffer quite a lot of damage before it fails to do its job
- particularly around baths.

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

On 19 July, 00:16, Tim Watts wrote:

And do vet it - one of us (me included) might be talking doobries, so do
give more weight to things where more than one person agrees

Wisdom of crowds! Or something. I've been lurking and searching
uk.d-i-y for quite a few years - so I know to discount the advice from
certain people who, AFAICT, only do DIY in their own imaginations, but
are more than happy to offer advice! (Not referring to anyone who
contributed to this thread).

Cheers,
David.