DIY Related: Craven Dunnill Victorian geometric and encaustic floor

[bunchofapes]

Hello

I am wanting to relay my original Victorian tiled floor. I have around 80% of the tiles.

I have researched the manufacturer to be Craven Dunnill, but getting the missing tiles remade is expensive, so I searched for an alternative and found some that I can cut to size and intermingle with the originals as the colours match pretty well.

The problem is that the original tiles are 12mm thick and the ones I have found are 9mm.

I have done a reasonable amount of diy tiling before, so really want to attempt this!

My question to the forum is: To thicken up the tiles, would it be reasonable to make a jig 12mm thick to hold a 9mm tile and then top up to the 12mm with a suitable tile adhesive and let it cure, thus giving you a 12mm tile of sorts??

I am not sure if that is madness or indeed if it would work!

And advice or suggestions would be appreciated on how to go about this.

Many thanks for reading

Dave

[andy8758]

Easiest way is to trowel adhesive onto the floor, and back butter the tile to make up the difference. There are cement based floor tile adhesives that will easily make up to 3mm difference.

[bunchofapes]

Thanks for the reply Andy

Now, not being a tiler, I assume back butter means to add extra adhesive to the backs of the tiles I need more thickness on?

My concern is, there are around 350 tiles in a sq meter, ranging in sizes, so getting them set to a perfect (as poss) level is paramount, would you still recommend your technique?

I am not in a rush to do this so am happy to go about it in a long winded way prep wise!

Dave

[whitebeam]

If you do fix a thinner tile try and make sure the thicker ones are bedded so you can get it flush next to it's neighbours, otherwise it may move about..if you see what I mean.

[andy8758]

Thanks for the reply Andy

Now, not being a tiler, I assume back butter means to add extra adhesive to the backs of the tiles I need more thickness on?

My concern is, there are around 350 tiles in a sq meter, ranging in sizes, so getting them set to a perfect (as poss) level is paramount, would you still recommend your technique?

I am not in a rush to do this so am happy to go about it in a long winded way prep wise!

Dave

Yes, back buttering is just lingo for applying adhesive to back of tile. Unfortunately it takes practice to judge how much extra adhesive to apply, and sometimes the tile gets lifted and rebuttered several times until the right is achieved. In general aim to have the tile sitting about 1mm above adjacent tiles when sat on ribbed (trowelled) adhesive, then twist and push tile to compress adhesive and level.

Geometric (victorian) tiling is very time consuming, even for those very experienced at doing it. Dont rush, and learn by your mistakes - you will almost certainly have a massive sense of achievement from the finished result.