Interesting approach to tiling?!

[Weatherlawyer]

If he was a cowboy the tiles would be wonky. That's all there is to that.

I had a similar problem years ago when the Abergele cowboy I was working for gave up and left me twit. Since the people were lovely I stayed on and coped. I had a trial and error period which was nasty and painfull until I got to the bit that was highest out of true and then just went back and made the pieces fit.

It turned into a nice enough job after that and when they came in and admired it, that put the plate on the door as far as I was concerned.

He had told them their walls were leaking and had them spend a fortune trying to fix what was more likely a chimney tar problem and finally after I built a gate pillar that he'd also given up on, he came back in the night and wrecked it. The spitefull, little man.

I bet he is still in business. And giving customers an hard time when he realises he has bitten off more than he can wrangle his little spurs out of.

.....

Effing cheek on the OP complaining about the way he "prepared" the wall. I'd have told him to stuff it if he said anything about that. Ripped the tiles off and gone home, too.

If the man sees what the ploker wrote about him here I would bet on the plumbing giving trouble in the not too distant...

It would be a serve him rite.

[Weatherlawyer]

1/2 a mil out on the tile ......and half a mile out on the wall.

I am glad it wasn't me. The dunce. I bet he's got packers under some of the gubbins.

Not being a plumber I'd have said: "Why not just slap a sheet of gyproc up first and put a piece of ply or thick layer of adhesive under where any fixing will go?" And make a cup of tea while I was waiting for the tosser to make up his mind. All at substantial, non cow-poke dollars a day, too neither.

[David Robinson]

Do you honestly think tradespeople read a d-i-y newsgroup?

What you suggest sounds like criminal damage to me. Two years inside for that. What sound advice you give!

Still, Google Groups suggests its typical of your contributions here - what a bitter excuse for a pro you must be, popping into a DIY newsgroup to try to wind up the amateurs. Sadly, I've only ever found a minority of "professionals" to have the breadth and depth of knowledge that can be found on the internet.

Cheers, David.

[David Robinson]

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, my approach was: mark wall, mark tile, drill tile, drill wall, fix tile.

It couldn't be easier. I've tried it the other way around. It's do- able, but wetting the drill bit is a faff, and there's more clearing up afterwards.

Obviously I'll be drilling new holes complete _now_ :-).

Cheers, David.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Fine for one hole - but say 8 for a towel rail? And why drill the hole in the wall before fixing the tile?

Drilling hard tiles is never easy. But not too bad with a diamond core drill. You just keep dipping it in a cup of water.

[David Robinson]

You don't _have_ to - that part doesn't really matter - though it let me put the wall plug straight into the wall, rather than through the tile. Would have been helpful in this case. Also lets you put a larger hole in the tile than the wall (e.g. when drilling through tile + plasterboard into battens) without risking the larger drill bit going into the front of the batten too when it breaks through.

...about every 5 seconds last night!

Anyway, just wanted to thank you for saying you always dot-n-dab tiles

- that gave me the confidence to get on with this without worrying about smashing the tiles. All holes drilled without incident. (though I still think it's far easier drilling them on the workbench or floor!).

Amazed at the strength of the tiles when drilling, I hit a tile offcut with a hammer, and found I couldn't smash it unless I propped it up at a 45 degree angle. They're really very tough, so it seems dot-n-dab won't cause any problems at all in this case.

Sorry to worry the group over nothing - but we're all first timers at everything once!

I think in the future, I'd consider doing the same with slightly wonky walls. Strong (and in this case, cheap!) tiles + dot-n-dab might be the way to go.

Cheers, David.

[Man at B&Q]

Plenty of room for the water to run down. Don't want it sitting there going manky, do you.

MBQ

[David Robinson]

That's what I've often read, but I have a feeling that by the time the water has got beyond your grout and behind your tiles, you're already stuffed - whether there's a little gap or a large one.

Most tile adhesives say there should be no gap at all around showers, so toothed trowels are pretty much out. In practice, if I could get the adhesive to form a flat base without a toothed trowel, I'd be able to plaster walls - and I can't!

My theory is that if you seal the grout properly, use sealant in the corners instead, and replace either when they're visibly damaged, you should be all right. I may be proven wrong, but then it's only got to last until the bathroom becomes so hideously out of date that it needs replacing. The old tiles had no such care (huge gaps in adhesive, lousy grout, cracked corners etc) and they'd stayed up 27 years - long past their "hideously out of date" limit! The plasterboard was going behind one part where water had got in - but it was wrecked everywhere by the time the tiles were removed, so I'm not sure it mattered.

Cheers, David.

[Man at B&Q]

MBQ

[David Robinson]

It wasn't funny.

Though the whole renovating a house experience hasn't been funny for the last couple of months.

Cheers, David.