DIY Help - Tile Floor Installation

DIY Help – Tile Floor Installation

by admin on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 | No Comments

Kitchen or bathroom floor tile will revitalize and renew the room. Tile floor installation in your preferred room will change its look and “freshen” it up.

A ceramic tile floor installation is very easy to clean and maintain. To clean it, just run a mop over it. A ceramic tile floor installation is a great idea for those rental houses where you don’t want to change the rug after the renter leaves, or houses with frequent foot traffic, like living rooms.

Also a ceramic tile floor installation is great for bathrooms. In this video, you’ll see how carpet was replaced by laying ceramic tile. In my opinion, a bathroom is no place for carpet, and a tile floor installation was a perfect solution. If you step with wet feet on carpet, the carpet will act like a sponge and grow mold and other health hazardous items. Ceramic tile, on the other hand, will dry up in short time.

A ceramic tile installation is very tedious and time consuming, but the process is very easy and the results are very rewarding.

You need to make sure that the entire tile floor installation has the adhesive on it. If you don’t, you will hear hollow places under the tiles when they dry, and when you walk on them. Smear the mortar (butter the tile) on the back of the tile and on the floor where you will place it.

In the following video, I show you how to lay bathroom ceramic tiles.

For laying ceramic tiles you are going to need:

Tip: This process is going to go a little quicker when you get the premixed mortar and grout instead of the dry.

-Ceramic tiles
-Floor leveler
-Ceramic tile thinset mortar
-Tile grout
-Tile spacers
-Tile cutter or saw (for cutting ceramic tile)
-Tile nippers
-Tile mortar trowel
-Tile notched trowel “mortar rake”
-Sponge
-Mortar Stirrer
-Latex gloves (otherwise the mortar will eventually “eat them up”)
-Tile grout sealer

1. Remove any old carpet.

2. If there is any remaining tile flooring, I used a sledgehammer as the process for removing ceramic tile. Bust them to pieces with a sledge hammer and remove them.

3. Level the floor (removing high and low places) using the floor leveler before placing the floor tiles.

4. The terrazo tile was too difficult to bust up, so I tiled over it, since there was not much height difference.

5. My 2 older children volunteered in the removing of the remaining ceramic tile with sledge hammers. (If you don’t have children, you have to do it yourself)

6. Sweep and vacuum the floor to remove dust and dirt.

7. When you’re done with the clean up. Draw straight lines on the floor using a colored pencil and a straight edge (like a straight piece of metal). You want your tile lines to be straight, so your tile floor installation is the same. Find the longest point in the center of the room you are tiling and lay the tile end to end in a straight line. Laying floor tile should first be dry, WITHOUT putting down any adhesive.

8. To keep the proper spacing between the tiles equal, use tile spacers, you can get at Home Depot or Lowes in their tile section. This little space is going to be filled with grout. These spacers also keep the tiles straight.

9. Where the tile is going to come up against the carpet, use a little metal strip you can butt the tiles up against. This metal strip will connect to the ground with the tile mortar.

10. Label the tiles according to their placement with a little masking tape so you can save some time when placing the tiles properly. Also the masking tape removes easy.

11. Try cutting ceramic tiles as little as possible. The process of laying ceramic tile involves placing whole tiles starting at the middle and only cut in inconspicuous (unnoticeable) areas.

12. Mix the mortar in a bucket with some water and the mortar stirrer hooked to a drill. The mortar should be mixed until it’s a “peanut butter” consistency.
Tip: The mortar is going to be grey when it is mixed with water, no matter if it’s white or grey. If you are going to have darker grout, use the grey mortar, but it you are going to have a lighter color of grout, go with the lighter color of mortar. The reason is, the possibility that the mortar shows through.

13. Use the mortar trowel to scoop some mortar on the floor.

14. Use the notched trowel, the “mortar rake”, to “draw” notches in the mortar on the floor

15. The most challenging tile is the first one. This will serve as a guide for the other tiles.

16. “Butter” (like buttering bread) both the tile bottom and the floor. Then place the tile on the floor using the spacers to maintain the correct spacing between the tiles. Clean excess mortar from the tile using the wet sponge (clean the tile while the mortar is wet, and not after it dries, this will save time.)

17. After laying ceramic tiles keep them level by extending a straight edge from one tile to the placed one.

18. Continue the process until all the full tiles are placed into position.

19. Use a tile cutter for cutting ceramic tile or use the tile nippers for cutting ceramic tile.

20. Wait 24 hours before walking on the newly tiled floor.

21. Use the purchased colored grout to fill in the line spaces between the tiles.

Tip: Use a darker color grout for an area that is higher in traffic. This makes the tile easier to keep clean.

22. Wait around 3 days before sealing the grout. “Paint” the sealer on the floor lines. The idea behind sealing, is to keep water and other fluids from staining your newly tiled floor.

Again, you can use the same concepts in this tile floor installation for kitchen floor tile.

Now enjoy your new, beautiful, easy to clean, tile floor installation.

PS:

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I hope this DIY help was beneficial to you.

Feel free to offer comments or questions on the below in the comments section.

Erik Loebl