tile spacer law

[cowgomoo]

Hello everyone, on site today we were discussing tile spacers - as you do - and one chap ( Italian ) stated that by English law the minimum space between tiles is 2mm. Is this the fact or was he just talking his usual rubbish - good tiler though !!
Thanking you in advance.

[Dave]

That is the Bs standard yes....

[doug boardley]

didn't know that!

[cowgomoo]

wow that was fast, does that mean that it would be illegal to use a 1mm spacer ?? I thought it was just impractical with the inevitable inaccuracy of tile manufacturers

[Dave]

No it wouldn't...BS5385 is a standard ( guideline) and not a regulation..

[Dan]

I don't think its that sort of Law, but it is British Standard, and if you're using less than 2mm for walls and 3mm for floors (I think it is) then you're not tiling to standard.

[cowgomoo]

So if I were using 1mm ie not to British Standard what are the possible reprecusions to me and why is that measurement the standard, is there a basis in science or is it just a number dreamt up by some suit ??

[Dan]

There's always reason behind a standard. I think the tile spacing section of the british standard looks at expansion and retraction of substrates and materials involved to work out what tile spacing is needed for a certain sized tile on wall and floors and the spacing is to compensate for movement. And of course tile variations allowed under standards (in the UK and elsewhere) which means all the tiles may not be exactly the same size.

So it'll be related to other standards, and all factors that contribute to failures when they're studied.

Manufacturers and associations and the likes can suggest improvements to standards I think. As they'd see failures and improvements, though I guess that's a slow process to get into practice.

[doug boardley]

at least I've got a reason now to back up "I don't like to go below 2mm"!

[David - Tradetiler]

The tile spacer police will be after you

Don't panic, we can do you some 'under the counter' 1mm spacers

[doug boardley]

The tile spacer police will be after you

Don't panic, we can do you some 'under the counter' 1mm spacers

do they come in discreet brown packaging?

[Fred]

WAS ASKED A few weeks ago to fit wall tiles with 1.5 mm spacers, I said find them and I'll fit the tiles...........

[Dan]

We've had people end up on the forums from searching for such a thing - tile spacer law - Google Search

lol

Notice the 'Replies' and 'Authors' (contributors) count is inaccurate. Though it was only last indexed 4 hours ago.

Only well indexed forums end up with google recording that information, though wrong in this case it is usually a roughly accurate once the topic is 24 hours old and it's been 'crawled' by google a few times.

[Dave]

It sez first and lists all posts on this thread now except this one....

[Dan]

I get 33 posts (when there are now 15) and 1 author (when there are about 7 contributors to the thread) and its last update was 4 hours ago.

Though that's all wrong. But checking other threads and thread titles we get much more accurate information. So perhaps just because the thread is new and Google has only crawled the website a couple of times, or because our daily website map submission hasn't been read/submitted yet.

Still. I see many IT/Design related forums struggling to get google do this to their forums, even using the same software and similar customisations, so that's cool for TilersForums to be fetching that sort of info from Google. It has been doing it for ages, but every time I reported such a thing in the past it went the next day

But this has been there that long that I dare point it out. So ner.

[365drills]

I've seen tiles fitted WITH NO SPACES before.

Mainly in hotel rooms and in my mates villa in spain. They just butt them together!


its nice to see a bit of grout though!

[FreeD]

looks like the whole of the London underground is going to have to be redone then 1mm max on them.

[hillhead]

i tiled a beautiful polished marble bathroom a few months ago and used 1mm spacers,never again!!!!

[mistral]

i tiled a beautiful polished marble bathroom a few months ago and used 1mm spacers,never again!!!!

A tile shop I used to do work for was obsessed with small grout joints and was always specifying 1mm on walls and 2mm on floors. He even tried to go down to 1mm on floors!!!! Seemed not to understand that not all tiles are the same size..........

[hillhead]

A tile shop I used to do work for was obsessed with small grout joints and was always specifying 1mm on walls and 2mm on floors. He even tried to go down to 1mm on floors!!!! Seemed not to understand that not all tiles are the same size..........

that bathroom i done i had the floor and walls with 1mm joints.looked like glass the floor in particular but the walls had a small chamfer around edges but i filled the grout nicely out to the face.

[mistral]

that bathroom i done i had the floor and walls with 1mm joints.looked like glass the floor in particular but the walls had a small chamfer around edges but i filled the grout nicely out to the face.

Agreed it looks great when finished....... but a bit of variation in tile size and it's a nightmare.

[Stan001]

And BS5385 also suggests that the tolerance for grouting gap below 6mm wide is plus and minus 1mm.
So for a …
2mm gap you can finish that off at 1mm to 3mm wide
and for a …
1mm gap you can finish that off at 0mm to 2mm wide
So there you go; today’s conspiracy theory is that the tile spacer manufacturers have bribed the British Standards guys to make 2mm the minimum because with a 1mm grout gap average allowance you actually don’t need a 1mm tile spacer – you could just butt them all up and officially ‘jobs a good’n’ – sweet!



…. I’ll get my coat.

[Fekin]

Personally I never go below 2mm for walls and 4mm for floors.

[poynton phil]

I laid some opus patterned porcelain on a floor last year, and it stated on the box, for the best result use a 2mm joint.

[smurf21]

Most of porcelanosa's stuff rec 1mm joints, we did some displays at their showrooms and everything had to be 1mm walls and floors 1.2m long tiles and 1mm joint said thats fine on perfectly flat timber displays but they rec it to a customer on dodgy walls and you try telling that customer that to achieve that showroom finish with that tile and that joint they need a replaster or reboard at X amount of pounds and the job goes south,,,,,, imo spacer width within reason should be at the fixers discretion.

[brian c]

depends how well calibrated the tiles are aswell to what spacer i use,i tend to use 3mm for walls and floors,i did a job last week with rectified quartz tiles and the customer wanted 1mm joints but i advised that the floor would probably fail as it was a plywood floor and 1mm joints is a no no due to deflection,expansion and contraction etc....in the end she opted for 3mm.... also told her i was deadly serious in that i wouldnt guarantee the floor.

[gizzy2007]

yeah it all depends on the tile some have chamfered edge which when you but it it gives you a 2mm space some have flat edges which you need to space

[tilestars]

what about the old johnsons tiles which where manufactured to be butt jointed, isnt there something in the british standard which says that 2mm is the standard unless the tiles have been manufactured for butt jointing ,i may be wrong, its a long time since i read the british standards

[Dave]

what about the old johnsons tiles which where manufactured to be butt jointed, isnt there something in the british standard which says that 2mm is the standard unless the tiles have been manufactured for butt jointing ,i may be wrong, its a long time since i read the british standards

British standards have changed since the days of butt jointing on lugged tiles.

Standards change to meet the way houses etc are built..and to cope with more demanding substrates.