The way to good looking and well done tiling job.

A bit about tiles
How to buy proper tiles
Perfect grout lines
Perfect surface
The right size of tile
How to make sure that those tiles will withstand the test of time
What not to do
How to choose a tiler?

a bit about tiles
What makes a tiling job look good? Straight gaps between tiles, flat surface with no tile corners sinking down or sticking up. How to get there? Well, half the job is on you. The right choice of tiles will make all the difference.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. First of all ask yourself what exactly is it you're planning to tile? When it's a country cottage try not to put there modern tiles of perfect shapes and sizes as you will end up with something looking like a man wearing a tuxedo with Nike shoes. Same goes for terracotta or Mexican paving inside a modern house with aluminium window framing and spot lights in the ceiling.
To find imperfect tiles is not a big issue as majority of tiles are imperfect. Every type of tiles that is not machine cut to dimension can show differences in size and shape. Think of ceramic or terracotta tile as a cake. Too much of this, not enough of that and it grows bigger or smaller. I would risk a statement that there are no two identical ceramic tiles. The differences in size can be so minimal you cannot even see it. So what's the problem?
Multiplication of a tiny mistake can lead to disaster. Imagine 10m long wall that you tile with 200mm x 200mm tiles. 10M divided by 0.2m equals 50 tiles in a row. Let's say that you were completely out of luck and all your tiles drop steadily in size by half a millimetre. Multiply this difference by 50 tiles and you will get 25mm worth of mock up at the end of the wall. Only an experienced tiler knows how to deal with uneven tiles. Conclusion – buy good material to minimize risks.
What you pay is what you get. The only safe type of ceramic tile is so called rectified tile. Those are machine cut to dimension. Is it a guarantee of success? Hell, no!! Machines are calibrated by humans. Cutting wheels get thinner by a minute as they wear. However differences in size between rectified tiles should be so insignificant they can be completely ignored. Unless of course Giuseppe had a bad fight with his girlfriend and he couldn't be bothered re-checking the settings every now and than...
Another safe choice would be all sorts of stone tiles. All of those are machine cut. However, nothing is perfect in nature except this reflection in the mirror when you shave.
Sandstone tiles for example, are cut from an irregular slab chipped off from a face of a rock. They are cut to dimensions and their top sides are machine finished, but the bottom parts are left untouched. Result – sandstone tiles from the same batch can be anything from 8 to 30-something millimeters thick. Again, a skilled tiler can produce an absolutely table-flat surface using those. When you buy sandstone, you better make sure your tiler is not a former hairdresser.

How to buy proper tiles
A good tiling job is all about:
a/ straight grout lines
b/ flat surface
c/ avoiding cuts smaller than half a tile
What can you do about it? Plenty !! Check what you buy. Get the right size of tiles. Check the surfaces designated for tiling.

a/check your tiles
Proper quality material equals half the success. If perfect gaps is what you're after, you have to make sure that your tiles:
a/ have same dimensions
b/ have true 90 degree angles at the corners
c/ have flat surfaces
If the variations in tile size are bigger than 1.5mm do not expect a miracle
from your tiler. A skilled professional will be able to hide this imperfection and from a distance everything will look good. Only the tiler will know that the whole thing is nowhere in the neighbourhood of “perfect”. When you buy budget tiles, be sure you accept the highest quotation...
How to see if the tiles are OK? The simplest way is to form a square out of four tiles. Bring them tight together trying to get a perfect cross in the middle. Now look at the gaps between them. Are they tight together in all places? If they are not, it's an indication of wrong angles. Now look at the sides of your four tile square. Do you see any sticking out corners? If an eye can't see, check with your finger. To be sure, you should get tiles from different boxes to do this experiment.
Remember - “perfect” does not exist. If you see variations in size up to 1 mm, call it perfect. Only with rectified tiles you should expect any better.
Checking the surface is easy. Just lye a tile on something that's 100% flat. Stone kitchen bench would be the tool. Of course if you scratch it, it's on you...
When you get decent tiles, half of the job is done. Even less skilled tiler won't kill the project.

B/ check the surface

That's again something that you're not powerless against. Check this floor before your dreams come crushing down on it. Get yourself a long, absolutely straight metal profile. “Sweep” the floor with it in all directions with the nose to the ground and see if the metal touches every inch of the floor. Do the same with the walls. If you see the light between you metal straight edge and the substrate it's a worry! Doesn't matter if the gap is tiny or huge. Actually huge is better as even a beginner will notice the difference in level.
A good tiler will cope with tiny imperfections. A bad one will damage your material and your toes will never be the same. Nothing more disappointing than stabbing a toe with a sharp corner of a tile while being aware that you actually paid for your pain..
When you notice any problems with a surface you can mention it to your tiler (specially if you don't hear him complaining or see him checking). Self levelling compound can bring the floor to a proper state. Walls can be plastered with a thin layer of adhesive before commencement of tiling. Afterwards, even less skilled tiler can do a spanking good job. Of course it will cost you extra, but may be your project will look like heaven as opposite to a road kill.

C/ buy the right size tiles
(read this section only if you're brave enough otherwise go to point “d”)

A great looking tiling job is a job with no visible cut tiles. This is almost never possible in real life unless a whole project has been designed by a decent architect and your house built by a builder. It's really a way to go if you have got too much money. In any other case you have to become my student.
A tiler does not fix the first tile until he knows the size of EVERY cut and an exact placement of cut tiles. It's called layout. I will not attempt to teach you the lot, but I help you to buy the right size tiles. The whole trick is to avoid cuts smaller than half a tile. Let's get to it !
First thing to know is the “tile+gap” figure. Measure your tile. Add the desired width of the grout line to the tile length. Measure the length of your room. Divide the length of your room by “tile+gap” figure. An even result means no cuts, full tiles.
Example:
Room size = 3.05m. Tile + gap size = 305mm. 3.05 / 0.305 = 10. Result- a row of 10 tiles with no cut at the end.

WARNING!!!! Unless you're sure that:
a/ the walls in the room are 100% parallel to each other
b/ whole room has an exact 90 degree angles in the corners
c/ all skirting boards are absolutely, dead straight
you have to be careful with layout!!! Why?




This will only happen if you start tiling with full tiles. We always can start with a cut. Let's do symmetrical layout

A/ divide “tile+gap” by half – 0.305 / 2 = 0.1525m (that's your first cut size)
B/ deduct this cut size from total length of the room:
3.05m – 0.1525m = 2.8975m
C/ divide the result from point “B” by “tile+gap” figure:
2.8975m / 0.305 = 9.5 (9 full tiles and 0.5 tile – an exact half of a tile)



When you start the row from half tile, you should end up with half tile at the end of it. The question is- are you happy with the size of the cuts or things can get better? Well, at this point use your imagination. To help you I have to show you both pictures side by side.




In layout “A” a tile slightly bigger could save the day. Another popular size of tile is 330mm. Hence 3.05m / 0.335m = 9.104 (read- 9 full tiles and 0.104 of a tile). 0.104 x 0.335 = 0.034m – that means a 34mm cut. Nothing uglier!!!
Well, nothing uglier if we start the row from a full tile. If, however, we do layout like in point “B” we might get something much more appealing.
A/ length of room minus half a tile: 3.05 – (0.335 / 2) = 2.8825m
B/ result from “A” divided by “tile+gap” : 2.8825 / 0.335 = 8.604 (8 tiles + 0.6 of a tile)
C/ Hence cut size: 0.604 x 0.335 = 0.202 (200mm cut)
What we've got is a decent cut, bigger than half a tile on both sides of the floor/wall. I would call it good enough at this stage. Unless you're not furious yet after all this math and you're willing to cook up your brain for the cause you're welcome to try different sizes.
200x200
300x300
330x330
350x350
400x400
450x450
600x600
If you're really brave you can do the same trick wit rectangular tiles like 300x600. Just remember that you have to do the same job with the width of your room as well. If your room is “L” shaped I can only wish you best luck. I had enough of this writing already and the explanation of “L” issue could do some serious damage to my health. I might add something here in the future when my fingers stop bleeding.

D/ same thing for people who hate math

Get yourself a weapon of your choice:
a/ several samples of different size tiles
b/ cut wooden sticks representing tile size
c/ cut squares from a cartoon box
d/ mark a point on measuring tape
Any of those tools will work.
Pretend you‘re holding a bicycle wheel and “roll” the tile on the floor or wall from one end to the other. What do you get at the end? Big cut, small cut?
Do the same thing starting to roll the tile from a centre point of the floor. Divide the length/width of the floor/wall by half. Put a coin on the floor (pin/mark on the wall). Start rolling your tile. Remember that you will end up with identical cuts on both sides. Note that symmetry will be kept if you put tiles on both sides of the coin (the coin would indicate a grout line between tiles) or if you put centre of the tile on top of the coin. Let me show you.


Pardon my painting skills. I'm a better tiler than an artist... You've got the point though.
You can start the row from:
a/ the beginning of the floor/wall
b/ from the middle starting with the corner of the tile
c/ from the middle starting with the central point of the tile.
You can shift the row left and right till you happy with the results. If cut on one side gets bigger, it gets smaller on the other side.
When for example one wall of the room is almost completely covered with furniture, planning a small cut there might be a good option to save the look of the rest of the floor. A classic example of “L “ shaped room is a bathroom with a toiled bowl hidden behind a bathtub. Don't get hang up too much on what you are going to end up with behind the toilet bowl. The space between the bathtub and the wall opposite to it is important. If you get symmetry there everything is roses!!
Do your “rolling” checking the width and length of the room and you will see almost instantly which tile size works the best.

The test of time...
If you saved money on floor levelling half the blame is on you. Tilers use
notched trowels to spread adhesives with. The basic price of tiling is based on work hours. A tiler wants to be able to spread the adhesive on a piece of a floor not smaller than one square metre and put the tiles one by one covering this spot within seconds rather than minutes. Couple of mallet taps letter, he calls it done. His happiness will not last as soon the job will slow down to a crawl when all the tile cutting starts.
This story looks quite different if the floor is full of paddocks and humps. In such a case the amount of adhesive has to be adjusted under each and every tile separately.
How it's done? A tiler lies a tile, presses it slightly and lifts it up. The adhesive makes an imprint on the back side of a tile letting a tiler know automatically which places of a tile are fully supported and which lack the adhesive. An experienced tiller knows without looking as he can feel how the tile behaves under slight push. A tiler than adds some adhesive to spots showing a weak imprint and scrapes the excess of glue from spots showing this excess. He lies the tile again with a hope that this time
everything is OK. If the tile or part of it sets in proper position too easily or too hard it means that it has to be lifted again for final glue adjustment.
How much time irregularities in surface can add to a job? I don't really want to leave this one to your imagination. Three times as long would be a right statement! Unless of course you've got yourself a cowboy who follows the surface of the sub-flooring creating monstrosity instead of well tiled surface.
Now a warning! There are tiles and TILES. It's not a picnic when a tiler has to lift several times 25mm thick basalt stone that weights 15kg and the suction of the adhesive makes it 3 times as heavy. Even 450x450 ceramic tile caught by glue can make you feel that being locked with your mother-in-law in the same room for a month is a pure heaven in comparison. Those are very dangerous thoughts! Even a holiest in heart tiler as he gets tired after several hours of hard labor starts doing things faster to see some progress. That is precisely what kills the job. Even the best tiler is entitled to wrong estimation of the amount of glue needed to fill up a paddock. First couple of months the poorly supported tile can seat fast. Several months latter the glue bond might break in weaker spots. What than? Several possibilities. Grout surrounding the loose tile will start cracking. In more severe cases a whole tile might break due to contraction and expansion of the sub-flooring caused by temperature changes.
Solution? Do not tempt the devil! It pays to fix the surfaces before tiling them especially when the chosen tiler does not look anything like an Einstein to you...
I completely ignored in this section the fact that the choice of proper
adhesives is THE most important thing. Why? It's an easiest problem to deal with. Every tiling shop sales grouts, adhesives, silicones. Talk to guys in the shop. They will be more than happy to educate you. When you do your homework and you know what you want, it is perfectly OK to tell
your tiler that you want to use certain products that you trust. No insult there. He will just adjust the quote accordingly Do not try to save on materials. Material's value is a small fraction of a contract price.

What not to do

1/ Speed kills. There are two types of boys: astronauts and astronomers like they eloquently put it in Jurassic Park script. I would express it more like: “thinkers of doing” and “doers“. Before the thinkers start the job, the doers are half the way through. It does not mean doers think less. Doers usually think 10 times faster than thinkers. The problem is, the buggers do not think of every eventuality at once. Doer will do the job faster even if he makes mistakes on the way that he needs to correct (which he
will on the fly). Thinker will go like a German tank, slowly but surely. The overall effect might be exactly the same even time wise.
No matter what kind of tiler you get yourself DO NOT try for a second to speed up the tiling process. Speed does not kill while driving. Not knowing what an indicator is, does. With tiling however the saying is 100% true. A golden rule - zero time pressure on a tiler. Thank you.

2/ Christmas syndrome. There is certain unexplained phenomenon in New
Zealand. Nothing much is happening during a year, everything is happening at the end of it. Organizing a job minutes to Christmas, you're loosing a chance of hiring a decent professional. You're getting whoever you can get at the time. Not to mention that a decent tiler at this time of year doesn't even remember what a weekend is. Decency means diddly squat to him when he listens to the whispers of his spine – run man, run and don't look back!! I refuse further comment this one...

3/ Do not fight the nature. Spring and late autumn means constant rain. Don't plan to tile your deck at this time... Don't delay the job till mid summer either. Outside tiling in the rain is not done. Outside tiling in a full sun and (God forbid) wind SHOULDNT be done. Why? Adhesive forms dry skin coat in minutes or seconds after being exposed to sun heat and hot wind. A tile lied on such skin coat will adhere for several hours or
weeks, but not years. A decent tiler, working in such conditions, will not attempt to spread the glue to support more than a few tiles at a time. Even more decent tiler will start looking like a beginner, spreading glue for one tile or spreading glue on the tile itself instead of the deck surface. As he looks clumsy and the job goes slow, he gets nervous and thirsty. Draw your conclusion...
Here’s a novelty! You have to remember that tilers are humans too. Expecting John Smith to be a master tiler instead of a John, and all of this in 45 degree Celsius, is just silly. For six hours he might be the best tiler on the planet, after that time he definitely will become a John again.

4/ Middle of winter and waterproofing – no good buddies!!! Heated interior of a house - a different story. An open, uninhabited building site – a different story. No waterproofing in temperatures dropping to zero.

5/ Don't avoid floor sanding on new building sites. I did mention previously
how humps in the sub-flooring can wreck a tiling job or make it more expensive. I haven't seen an absolutely straight particle board floor on a building site in my life. The joints between two boards are always higher than the middle parts of the boards. Hoping that installation of fibre-cement sheets of tile underlay will solve the problem is nothing but a dream. Moreover, same rules apply to installation of tile underlay as to installation of tiles. Bumps and paddocks in the sub-flooring are not
welcome. This material does not like to be bend. Hiring a floor sander for couple of hours just to send the joints will be:
a/ less costly than surface levelling by a tiler or tailer's struggle with uneven floor
b/ will produce better results than levelling

I, myself, am not a great believer of sticking hard, rigid cement based materials over a flexible substrates no matter what the label on a bag says. Levelling compounds are not flexible like adhesives designed for tiling over wood. I do not have a problem using levelling compounds over concrete. I hate to use them on particle boards “reinforced” with flexing fibre-cement sheets. It is OK according to rules, but those are not my rules.
Whom should you trust: a label or your tiler? Labels are designed to sell stuff. No one has a faintest clue if a new product works before this product gets old. To make a statement that an adhesive is excellent, one has to have a time machine to check 20 years old job done with this adhesive. Period.
I'm in the trade since 1986. That qualifies me to be an expert of ancient techniques. Let’s say an era between 1986-1990. Experience is the sole thing a tiler can fully rely on. With a time one develops a certain feel of things that can help to distinguish a crappy product from something really
good.

How to choose a tiler?

Oh boy!!! There is as many rules as exceptions to those. Gods didn't like me one day and they made me a project manager for a biggish tiling company. I've seen tilers of all shapes and sizes and I tell you it's not an easy task to separate the bad seeds just after first conversation. Well, easier for me as I know the subject and can ask all sorts of nasty questions.
A decent tiler very often will have in his van something that resembles a nuclear explosion. However his basic tools will be clean and well looked after. If you ask him for a pencil, he will get it from this pile of gravel in a second. Moreover, his level might even be packed in soft protective case. Avoid eye contact when he takes the level out. He hates when the outside world notices his feminine side!
When a decent tiler shows up to do a quotation, he will take some time looking at the job, not only measuring it. Don't try to figure out what the heck is he thinking about for so long when everything seems to be obvious and simple. It's a good sign.
A decent tiler will never give you the price the same day unless the job is really small or surprise free and easy to estimate. What's easy or not, that's for him to know.
A decent tiler might not be a perfect gentleman and he won't be bothered hiding it. He didn't came here after another long, damn day to score a date. If he seems to be full of himself, may be he's got a good reason for it. Remember, he doesn't have to be charming. He has to tile like a well programmed robot.
What about references? Isn't it a first thing to check? I can only laugh at this one. Huge companies co-operate sometimes with most useless individuals and are happy as long as they can put a margin on tiler's work. Small ones co-operate with whatever is left.
What about previous clients? Well, what about them? What do
people know about tiling? Mary will tell you that John did amazing job. You visit Mary. You look at John's job and trying your best to explode with laughter, you leave quickly. Hopefully Mary can't hear you thinking - “WHAT A SLAUGHTER???!!!”.
The opposite situation happens very often. Mary didn't like the tiler's look for some reason and the job itself looks BRILIANT.
Some people ask me what the best tilers come from? Nothing more
ridiculous... However, tiling is an ancient trade in some spots on the planet. If your tiler happens to come from such a spot you've got 50/50 chance that he's worth something. I would vote for Europe and Asia. One of the best boys I've worked with was a Melanesian. The chap was matching my knowledge, skill and style. So what? Malaysians are good? No, that's not what I said. I said that this Malaysian was.
Sorry to say buy your instinct is a best weapon. Ask questions. Put the stop watch on. How long did you have to wait for a response? Was it a single shy sentence or a continuous steam of knowledge? Was it a stream of knowledge or a stream of longish mumbling? Was it a shy single sentence indicating knowledge or was it just shy? Come on! It's easy!!!
I gave you some material in this production of mine that can help you ask some pretty nasty questions.
OK. I've got one for you. A tiler is tiling a wall. He checked several meters of tilled surface. Everything is absolutely plumb and level. He used rectified tiles that are 100% perfect. However there are some spots on the wall when the gaps seem to be smaller or bigger than the norm. Why???!!

That's just a joke. You shouldn't ask this kind of question as the answer 99% at the time would be – “Good day to you sir. See you never!” Nevertheless, if you had a chance and could ask this question, you would find out that only a small margin of “tiling experts” would know the correct answer.

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