Tiling question

[Peter Watson]

I'm about to start my first attempt at tiling - I'm doing the bathroom.

Some time ago I fitted a bar type shower mixer on an untiled wall (wall protected by a shower curtain taped to the wall until I got round to the tiling) with 15mm pipework chased into the wall to feed it.

Two questions:

1. The chases are just wide enough for the pipes, with minimal damage to the surround plaster. I'm fitting 200mm square tiles so they've got a large surface area for adhesive. Do I need to plaster the pipes in or can I get away with sticking the tiles across the chases?

1. The pipes to the mixer are at 150mm centres, with 65mm dia chrome covers around each outlet. Tiling around this appears to be the fiddliest part of the wall so I'm starting the tiling here. How do I best tile round the pipe outlets? Do I place the horizontal join between tiles in line with the outlets:

ASCII art:

----X-----X---- X=Outlet pipe

or arrange for the outlets to come through the vertical centre of a tile (hole drilled through)? If the horizontal join is across the pipes I can either use one tile above and below with notches nibbled out towards the edges to go round the pipes:

| | --+-X-----X-+-- | | or two tiles above and below with notches nibbled 75mm in from the edge?

| ----X--+--X---- |

Any advice most welcome!

Peter

[The Medway Handyman]

More important is to get a start point for the tiles, preferably at the window & work from there. Deal with whatever the shower leaves you with when you get to it.

Follow the advice in a good DIY book about spacing & layout and you won't go far wrong.

I'd assume the shower has some kind of cover plate to hide the pipes, which will also hide any inconsistencies in the tiling?

[The Natural Philosopher]

You can easily get away with it.

Get a tile saw. With practice you can use that to make almost 270 degrees of circlular cutout in a tile. A semicircle is easy. Ok the edges are a bit ragged, but can be filed to perfection. Use silicone to seal BELOW finished level and grout above to 'look good'. If possible add chrome caps etc to cover the rough stuff.