I'm going to show you how to lay floor tiles.
The tools that I require to lay floor tiles, we need our tiles, we need a tile cutter,
we'll need something to mix the tile glue, a tile spreader, some spacers, some levels
to lay the job up, angle grinder for difficult cuts, and something to measure as well as
our protective equipment.
We also need tile glue, a few buckets and some water.
Whereas every job is different, when we're setting up jobs we try to avoid small cuts,
and in wet areas we try to make allowance for falls to floor wastes.
The first thing we need to do is to set out our datum line.
Our datum line gives us reference for the rest of the job.
This particular datum line we're setting out from the wall, so we can start a fault on
both sides of the line, and then we can cut into the wall.
So now we've established our datum line, we're gonna mix up some glue.
So when we're mixing up our glue we start with an empty bucket, a little bit of water,
so we're gonna tip some water into the bucket, put the powder in and then we will stir it
till it's toothpaste consistency.
It's a good idea to lay out some tiles dry, and that'll give you an idea of what it would
look like at the end.
So on our datum line we've marked our start point, which will give us an even cut at either
end of the job.
So let's start laying some tiles.
To make life easy, we trowel the glue onto the floor and then we rake it with our notched
trowel to give us a set amount of adhesive under the tile.
At the moment, we're only putting the adhesive on that side of the line, which allows us
to be more precise working off our datum line.
So I'm just putting a small lick of glue on the edge of the tile to make up for the gap
between the adhesive I've spread and the datum line.
So to pop in the spacers in to keep an even space, we're using 1.5mm spacers, just popped
in between the tiles to get an even gap.
So now we need to do some cutting.
So our first cut is against the wall, so we'll measure it, make sure it's even both sides,
then we'll cut the tile.
With a larger tile, it's easier to mark both tiles and cut to the mark so that you're more
accurate.
You're not relying on your tile cutter.
So we're keeping this cut as close to the tiled wall as we can, as this is a finished
wall.
The same way I cut the first tile, I've measured and pre-cut the lengthways tiles.
So as we push the tiles down into the glue it'll ooze up through the joints.
We want to keep it as clean as possible.
So due to the waterproofing we've got a little bit of a gap against the wall.
The wall tile will come down and cover that gap.
For our corner tiles, first we measure it to width, cut it, then we measure it to length
and then cut it to length.
This tile's a bit different.
We've got to cut a square in the tile for drainage.
So I place the edge of the tile against the tile that's laid, and with our pencil we mark
either side of the square along one edge, and we bring it back, place it against the
edge of the tile alongside it and mark either side of the edge.
A nice easy way to mark along the smooth edge of a tile is to use a finger gauge.
Put your finger along the edge of the tile, the pencil on the point that you wish to mark,
then just drag your finger along the tile.
Because we're in a confined space, we're going to use the angle grinder.
We don't want to fill the room with dust, so we'll take it outside to cut it.
After cutting around the outside of the lines, I cut a diagonal tile through the middle which
made the off-cut easier to tap out.
So we're going to put this tile in, cut the last tile in the row, and then continue the
process until we've got a complete tiled floor.
It's a bit time-consuming, but the end results are well worth it.
And that's how you lay floor tiles.