Tiled a bathroom recently, 25 cm x 33 cm ceramic tiles, supplied by customer who got them from Topps Tiles.
Started using box 3 & found the horizontal grout line going out of kilter. Row beneath was perfect.
Measured the tile & it was over size by a good 2mm.
Boxes 4, 5, 6 & 7 were fine.
Not come across this before. Very slight variations yes, but not that much.
What would be the tolerance on a ceramic tile +/-?
BS EN 14411 has all the specifications etc. for ceramic tiles. Download a copy here
I should have added that, assuming I'm reading the table correctly and my maths is OK, the tolerances on your tiles would appear to be +/-
1.5 mm on the 250 mm side and +/- 1.98 mm on the 330 mm side (0.6% on the work size), so your 2 mm oversize would seem to be within spec.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sorry, brain failure there, try 'would seem to be just out of spec'.
1/2mm on the lot I had.
Alternatively they are in spec with the large ones being 1mm too large and the small ones being 1mm too small. Both within 0.6% of the average size.
Were they all the same batch number ?
In theory you're supposed to check batch numbers for uniformity of colour although apparently even that can fail if a box is near the start or finish of a batch. Presumably they mix each batch in skip size buckets and that's what the numbers refer to.
Slight variations in dimension will probably be the result of different degrees of shrinkage owing to slight differences in the chemical composition of the clay. Which may vary slightly from batch to batch, the degree depending on production costs - final sale price etc.
michael adams
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