Tiling questions

[Col]

Hi

I have a really big job coming up in which i am having to tile approx

30sqm of wall.

I have some questions mind you!!!!

When tiling around a socket how do you get the pro look?? Do you unscrew the socket, tile behind it then rescrew it?? or do you cut around the socket and grout around it??

Also which do you prefer.

1. Making the seal beneath worktop and tile using two strips of masking tape, smoothing with your finger and then removing the tape when the sealant has gone tacky

1. sealing between the worktop and tile and just smoothing with your finger??

2. When tiling onto boxing, do you treat the wood first to aid adhesive?? Boxing is 6mm marine ply.

Col

[Chris Bacon]

You tile behind the socket.

Neither. Use a packing piece such as a strip of "cushionfloor" to keep the tiles off the worktop, and grout down to it. Remove the packing piece to leave a long slot. Apply masking tape along the bottom of the tiles, and along the worktop. Fill slot with silicone sealer. Finish with an appropriately shaped tool, such as a piece of electrical flex cut off cleanly. Remove tape, pulling away from the sealer to keep the finish good.

Apply a coat or two of 3:1 water:PVA, apply tile adhesive immediately.

[Col]

SO when tiling behind the socket do you grout around the socket or silicone it?

Working from the middle of the wall would you place your batten 1 tile up off the worktop? Bearing in mind the its only covering half the wall so would probably have to have either half tiles at the top of the tiling section or at the bottom (Worktop)

When it comes to outward corners would you tile into the eye or out to the eye??

col

[Chris Bacon]

I just leave it as it is!

If the worktop is straight and level, as it should be, I'd tile straight off it (with spacers), and continue the line of the worktop with a batten. You don't really want to cut tiles on the worktop edge, put the half tiles at the top, or consider moving wall units so you can work whole tiles, or (better) use whole tiles, and hang the wall units over them (no fiddly cutting to do).

Not sure. Use RE if poss., or corner trim.

[Stuart Noble]

definitely

looks awful IMO. Not that you can't tile round it neatly with a bit of effort but sunken sockets just look naff. If you're lucky, the bottom of the sockets will be exactly 6" above the worktop and, assuming your tiles are

6" I would jack the units up to this level if you're close. Then you only have to lay the tiles out so that none of the L shaped tiles for the row containing the sockets is too small to be self supporting. It's worth spending time marking all this out because, once the first tile is laid, there's no going back.

I prefer to tile straight on to the worktop, then use method 1 above to get a small triangular seal.

Ideally, yes, but the adhesive that comes in tubs sticks pretty well to ply/mdf/chip One tip. If the 30 sqm isn't pretty flat, I'd do some plastering first to level it up . Tile adhesive is a very expensive way to level a wall!

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[Col]

Well lets just say that i have 2 kitchens 2 bathrooms, one shower room and a lobby to half tile and paper!!!

Im lucky in a sense that 1 kitchen, 1 bathroom, 1 shower room and the lobby are all plum stright walls but the other 2 rooms are a nightmare.

The plasterer came to do the bathroom, he was as much use as a 10 week old bag of cement that has been left out in the rain. he tickled the walls and did nothing so i threw him out and did the job myself!!!!

For an easy solution the plaster in the bathroom has rotted so im just boarding over it and creating a shelf as well, other than that the adehsive will just slide past the dips.

Oh and im not paying for the materials so im not fussed!! And if those sockets in the kitchen are 6" above top then i will be a monkeys uncle. Like most things in this house straight means wonky, uneven, falling off!!!

IVE NICKNAMED IT THE "MONEY PIT" Much to the annoyance of its owner!!!!

[Stuart]

I have just put in a length of worktop and tiled above it with 2 new sockets .I used drywall boxes and tiled on top then fitted the socket faces .That is by far the neatest way to do it .The tiles fit flat on to the tiles .If not using drywall boxes then sink the boxes flush to the wall first then tile then fit the socket faces .You might need longer screws for this .

I tiled above the ( level ) worktop leaving a space by using a tile spacer .Then used masking tape at the foot of the tiles and along the worktop and applied the sealant to the space and smoothed it over using a suitable implement . Stuart

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[Jeff]

I think all your questions have been answered so the best bit of advise I can give you is Buy an electric tile cutter, it doesn't have to be a posh one, I think mine is a b&q own brand about £25, don't even think about using anything else

Regards Jeff

[Stuart]

I'll second that .Whether it is for straight cuts or odd shapes .They are the bees knees. Can be a bit messsy,especially if you keep the guard up to see what you are doing and doing that uses up more water out of the reservoir as well. Stuart

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[Ian Stirling]

I'm surprised nobodies thought of a tiling range, with integrated socket tiles.

[Stuart Noble]

You are joking of course. On straight cuts they take forever compared to the score and snap type. The time it would add to a whole room doesn't bear thinking about, not to mention the mess. I don't think you'll see pros using saws for anything other than the odd difficult cut. Even on L shapes you only need saw the short side.

However, you do need the type where the snap is done without having to re-position the tile (Rubi and similar). They are an absolute doddle to use and will snap cleanly down to half an inch. The early Plasplugs type where you had to accurately place the tile in the jaws after scoring were a pain and, unfortunately, turned people off snappers altogether.

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[The Natural Philosopher]

Although I accept that for professional tiles doing large areas score and snap will work, and is faster...

(i) it leaves a sharp edge wich I always sand off anyway. (ii) It can't do corner cuts, and nibbling always breaks more tiles than the tile saw. (iii) it can't do curves, whereas with ingenuity, a tile saw can produce remarkably goood curves to fit round pipes etc. (iv) currently a tile saw is as cheap as a decent score and snap system, and will actually last LONGER than a cheap one. (v) Score and snap will not reliably prooduce tile sections less than about 30mm wide. (vi) For an amateur, a tiles saw will probabkly result in less wastage of expensive tiles.

For those reasons I would unhesitatingly recommend tile saws to every single D-I-Yer in preference to a score and snap system.

[Stuart Noble]

With just a light score you get a perfect edge, which is of course sharp. Normally hidden by grout anyway.

. If you're on your last box of tiles, this is true. If you've got loads left over, it'll snap off 15mm :-)

Can't disagree with the above, but the proportion of difficult cuts to straight is pretty small. One course of tiles round a bathroom could easily mean 70-80 straight cuts. You really need both tools

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[Jeff]

In the context of a professional tiler you are correct (time is money) but for diy you cant beat electric (i have 2 or 3 snappers up in the loft that will never be used again)

Regards Jeff

[The Natural Philosopher]

Mmm. I never tile all round bathrooms - or in fact all round anywhere..

I certaubly find that cutting for electric sockets in kitchens waste pipes in bathrooms, and door frames on floor tiles is by far and awy teh miost time consuming bit of the job.

It only takes about 20 seconds a tile to slice them up on the saw..so less than an hour of cutting to do your 70-80 tiles.

Not much fo an amatuer compared with fgoing down to the tile shop and ordering ten more top replace the ones that didn't snap right anyway.

I stand by my claim that you can do everything with the saw, and its cheap, and nothing else is as versatile or necessary.....

[Andrew Gabriel]

I did kitchen and bathroom ceramic floor tiles including half- tile skirting boards, and bathroom wall tiles around bath/shower including window enclosure with a cheap (£10 IIRC) scratch and snap tile cutter. It was not actually capable of snapping the ceramic floor tiles though, so having scratched them, I would clamp them in the workmake along the score, and thump the top with a fist, which produced perfect breaks nearly always. For complex shapes, I used an angle gringer to cut in to the tile. The worse one was cutting two ceramic tiles to go round the loo wastepipe. For this, I bought a packet of 5 tile cutting jigsaw blades from B&Q, and it took all 5 to make the cut (they were really intended for wall tiles).

[Stuart Noble]

This is most people's idea of what a snapper is. Once you've used a decent one (actually not that expensive these days) I don't think you you would naturally turn to the saw for straight cuts.

Great fun!

That's a bit stressful too.

I've had the wc and the waste right next to each other on the floor before now. 4 curved cuts. Now that is a job for a tile saw.

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