PREPARATION.
For any tiling job all surfaces need to be extremely flat, level and plumb. Most plasterers assume that because a room is being tiled it dosen't have to be that great a job, but if you want flat tiling then you must start with flat surfaces.
Tilers really do get weary of arguing about this subject. To have to straighten plastering that has just been done implies that the plasterer was either thick, useless at the job, or just didn't care. Either way, why pay them to spread plaster about at random and spoil your project.
Make it absolutely clear to whoever is preparing the walls or floors for tiling that you want it right. Go over everything yourself with a straight edge and level and make sure that they have got it right and tell them that you will do so. There is no excuse for the preparation to be less than spot on, that’s what you are prepared to pay for, not an inferior job with a load of excuses.
Making good, and partial preparation of small areas is perhaps the main cause of stress when having say a bathroom installed as it is not the plumbers job, the electricians job, the carpenters job, in fact it becomes an ‘odd job’ because it is such a small and difficult aspect to schedule as part of an installation. So, nine times out of ten your £1,000.00 plus of agonisingly chosen tiles are being fitted on top of the work of someone who ‘thinks’ what they are doing is good enough.
We prefer to do all our own preparation works and will, where possible, work with the installer prior to us turning up to do the tiling. This guarantees that we and therefore you, will be happy with the finished job plus it saves the installer the hassle of the ‘Odd job’, or paying a plasterer a days money for a few hours work.
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Always ensure that your new lighting system is in its finished position before the tiling is started as this can also highlight even very slight lipping of tiles that looked perfectly flat before the light was moved. This is very important, shine a torch across any tiled wall and see for yourself. It's not so important for kitchen underlights as they are right ‘in the face’ of the tiles, but more for bathrooms with new halogen downlighting being installed. The further from the walls the better is a good rule of thumb.
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Stud walls, clad in plasterboard are a common cause of disasters in bathrooms. A lot of modern tiles require very sound subsurfaces and ordinary plasterboard walls are invariably not suitable. Most have been tacked to 16" centre verticle studs with a few horizontal noggins placed at random. This system was never designed to support heavy, large format tiles and can fail. This is especially the case when refurbishing a bathroom where the existing boards have had tiles hacked off them and been repaired.
We would always recommend re-boarding the room in a top quality board system that is specified as suitable. We prefer to use ply as this has enormous strengthening benefits that cement or plaster based boards do not.
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Never ever allow tiles to be fixed onto Chipbord or MDF. they will both fail.
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If you are having a new kitchen installed it is a very good idea check the level of the floor before it is fitted. Undertile heating and the tile thickness can add up to an inch or more and if the floor is also out of level, there can be problems with appliances fitting under the worktops. Get the installer to allow for your choices and then add a bit on. We would always recommend the floor be made spot on level and flat before the kitchen is fitted.
We quite often tile the floor before the kitchen is fitted, so long as we have the new kitchen plan to set the floor out to. This creates a very hygenic alternative to the trough that is normally left when we tile up to kickboards.
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Tiling onto timber floors is fine so long as any movement is taken out first and the area is overboarded with a good quality ply. This must be stuck to the floorboards or chipboard sub floor and screwed down. There are what appear to simple be off the shelf solutions made of plastic but we don't rate these as much as ply which we have been using very successfully for years now.
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A sand and cement screed is easy enough to prepare so long as the overall level of the floor is not a problem. If you use self levelling products on a floor, they will not make it flat if it is dramatically out of level, unless you use enough leveller. If the floor is an inch out of level approaching a doorway they are no good, as they will raise the floor level too much. Sometimes we have to accept a floor that is merely flat and not spot on level and these floors are best left to us as they are quite difficult to get right. We will always check this for you when measuring and estimating.
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Don't have any coving fitted to the ceiling before the tiling is done. You lose the bottom profile of the coving and it looks wrong. Best to have it done after the tiling is complete and fixed onto the tile so that the bottom profile is seen.
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Avoid anodised aluminium floor thresholds that are fixed under the tile. Once they get tatty they cannot be removed without ruining the tiled floor. Much better to use a champhered hardwood threshold which is independant of the tiling.
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Green timber used for stud walls will shrink by as much as 10% and this can create disastrous movement problems, always ensure that any timber being used for studwork in your project is absolutely kiln dried and kept dry. In particular, beware of tanalised rough sawn timber, this is often sodden with preservative and although it won’t rot, it will shrink and cause gaps to appear unpredictably. If the wood feels heavy, it is full of sap or moisture and should be discarded. Always choose the lightest bits you can. We always treat any areas that will be prone to damp with a preserver as a precaution anyway, especially old timber floor areas that have been allowed to become damp for long periods.
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