How To Install Ceramic Floor Tile In Bathroom

Joe Ferrante has been laying tile for xxx years—many of them for This Onetime Firm—and after all this time, he's still enamored with the material. "I love tile," he says. "It'due south beautiful and it doesn't require much maintenance."

On a floor, these sparse, fragile slices of ceramic crave some special care and preparation. Otherwise, they won't survive the parade of anxiety through an entry or the sudden spills in a bathroom or kitchen, where floors go from bone dry to sopping wet faster than you can say "puddle."

"Anytime I approach a new job, I make sure the expanse about to be tiled is stiff enough so it won't flex when someone walks on information technology and that it can stand up to wet-and-dry cycles," says Ferrante. Installed the right way, using some basic tools and techniques, a tile flooring should terminal forever, come hell or high water.

Steps on How to Lay Tile

i. Tiling a Floor Overview

Illustration by Gregory Nemec

• Strive for a layout that maximizes the number of whole tiles and the size of any cut tiles.
• When awkwardly sized tiles can't be avoided, identify them where vanities volition cover them later or out of the main sight lines from the doorway.
• You lot shouldn't step on any tiles until the thinset has cured for at least 24 hours.
• Save all of the cuts requiring a wetsaw for last. Then rent the wetsaw for one twenty-four hour period.

2. Dry out layout

Photo by David Carmack

• Discover the midpoint of each wall and snap chalk lines on the floor. The line crossing at the room'due south center are the starting point of the tile.
• Lay a row of tiles along a straightedge more than halfway across the room. For consistent joints, utilize tile spacers. This row determines the size of cut tiles along the walls.
• At the room's centre, place a tile where the chalk lines cross with its edges touching the lines. Measure from one wall (phone call it A) to the nearest tile edge. Now, become to the tile row and, starting at a joint, measure along the row and marker the distance you just measured. The marker shows the width of the tile at the wall. If that measurement is less than 2 inches, go back to the heart tile and motility it away from wall A to create a wider cut tile.

three. Dry layout, Role II

Photo past David Carmack

• From the center tile, measure to the opposite wall (call it B; marker this distance along the tile row. Conform the centre tile along the A-to-B line until measurements at walls A and B are the same.
• After adjusting the A-to-B line, mark the centre tile where information technology touches the chalk line between the other walls (call them C and D). Align these marks with the C-to-D chalk line. Repeat the measuring and adjusting procedure for walls C and D.
• Lay a straightedge parallel to the C-to-D line and against ane side of the center tile. Mark the straightedge where it meets a corner of the tile. This mark is your starting point for laying tile.
• Trim door casings with a flush-cut saw and then tile can slip underneath. Cutting with saw held flat against a tile on pinnacle of a piece of cardboard (to represent the thickness of the thinset).

4. Spread thinset mortar

Photo by David Carmack

• Chuck a mixer into a drill and blend the powdered thinset with latex condiment—not water—until it's the consistency of mayonnaise. Let information technology slake (residual) for about x minutes. Mix only as much thinset as you can utilize in 2 hours.
• With the flat border of a trowel, spread a thin layer of thinset (scratch coat) over a 2-past-3-foot area next to the straightedge.
• Before the scratch coat dries, apply more than thinset using the notched border of the trowel. Agree the trowel at a 45-degree bending to the floor and spread the thinset evenly in broad curved strokes, then finish with a straight pass, which ensures the all-time adhesion. Combing the thinset into furrows allows air to escape equally the tile is fix.

Tip: When spreading thinset, printing down hard so that the trowel makes a scraping sound; the trowel's notch size should equal the tile thickness.

5. Ready the tile

Photo by David Carmack

• Gently lay a tile on thinset side by side to the straightedge. With fingertips widespread, push downwardly with a slight twist of the wrist.
• Use this same technique to set each tile, making one row along the straightedge. Using tile spacers ensures even joints.
• Movement the straightedge out of the way and lay the next row alongside the first, using the edge of the tile as your guide. Continue spreading thinset and setting tiles in 2-by-3-foot sections, working from the center of the room out toward the walls. Every few rows, hold a framing foursquare or A-foursquare alongside the edge of the tiles to check that they are square to each other.

Tip: Consequent finger pressure (and abiding practice) helps avoid lippage—where a tile'south edge is higher or lower than its neighbors.

6. Final cuts

Photo by David Carmack

• Brand straight cuts equally needed with a snap cutter. When waste is more than an inch wide, score tile with i firm stroke, and then interruption by pushing down handle. Smooth cutting edge with rubbing rock.
• For straight cuts with waste less than an inch broad, score tile on snap cutter, so snap pieces off with nibblers or use a wet saw.
• To fit a tile effectually an outside corner, hold i border against the wall and mark the tile where information technology touches the corner. Pencil a line all the way across the tile. Then, without turning the tile, move it to the other side of the corner and again mark where tile and corner meet. Mark an Ten on the office to be cutting abroad.

7. Notch the tile

Photo by David Carmack

• On a wet saw, cutting the tile from the mark to the line, taking intendance non to go beyond the line. Then turn the tile and cut forth the line next to the Ten, upwardly to but not beyond the start cut. At finish of cut, lift up the edge farthest from yous to aid free the waste.
• For curved or scribed cuts, make parallel slices with the wet saw into the waste product section, upwardly to simply non past the line marking the cutting. And then break away the remaining "fingers" with nibblers.

8. Fill the tile joints with grout

• Later tile sets overnight, use a margin trowel to scrape off any thinset from the tile surface or in the joints.
• Mix up a batch of grout to a looser-than-mayonnaise consistency. Add together water a lilliputian at a time past squeezing information technology from a sponge.
• Scoop a trowelful of grout onto the floor and spread it with a safe float held at a 45-degree angle to the floor. Push grout into the joints by first moving the bladder in line with the joints, then diagonal to them. Work from the edges of the room toward the center.

ix. Cleaning up the grout

• Let the grout to fix up for 20 or xxx minutes. It should be firm to the touch before you brainstorm washing the tile's surface. Wipe away grout brume with a damp, well-squeezed sponge rinsed oft in a bucket of make clean water.
• Again, wait for grout to haze over, then wipe with clean sponge. Echo until the tile is clean.

Tip: Don't exist too aggressive when wiping upwardly grout brume, or yous could pull grout out of the joints.

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Tools

Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/flooring/21016706/how-to-tile-a-floor

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