What's the hardest bit? - Tile Advice

[Confiteor]

Hello

I am a fair bit into my first ever tiling job, and it is going pretty well. I'm learning as I go, and each bit I do is slightly better than the bit before. However, overall it seems to be going well and everyone who has inspected it so far has been genuinely impressed --- including the biggest test of all --- my old man.

So, I have a simple question. What do people feel is the hardest bit about tiling?

Is it the setting out? Cutting? Placing? Edges? Grouting?

I need to know if the worst is yet to come!

Cheers.

 

[GazTech]

Maintaining a solid bed when tiling floors takes a lot of concentration mate,apart from that it's a piece of p1ss,oh yes and controlling the bloody taxman lol:wink_smile:

 

[DHTiling]

Each job has its own complications, be it uneven walls or floors, mosaics or natural stone setting out and preperation is the key to a successful job. Taking into account what size cuts you will get around doors,windows,bath etc or what adhesives and grouts to use. No room or floor will be the same.... dave.......

 

[Varley]

Preperation is the tricky bit, you get the subsrate to a decent standard and it makes the actual tiling a hell of a lot easier.

 

[arcadia]

Maintaining a solid bed when tiling floors takes a lot of concentration mate,apart from that it's a piece of p1ss,oh yes and controlling the bloody taxman lol:wink_smile:

Gaz i don`t know if this is a silly question or not..? But what do you actually mean by "Maintaining a solid bed"..?

..Kev..

 

[wivers]

I wouldn'y say its a peice of pis s gazz mate. I think its all a damn skilled and hard job to do correctly, and experience is essential. There are lots of frustrating fidly bits within the job i think, and it takes alot of concentration especially when your just starting out.

For me the hardest bit and the most anoying is tiling into window reveals and boxing!
I hate it, and i can lose hours trying to get it right.

 

[GazTech]

Gaz i don`t know if this is a silly question or not..? But what do you actually mean by "Maintaining a solid bed"..?

..Kev..

Tiling walls is usually just for looking good and stopping water from damaging surfaces,if the bed of adhesive isn't solid no harm can usually come to them.But with floors this is a different story,apart from having to look good it has to take a lot of hammer.A solid bed of adhesive is as it sounds ,complete coverage acroos the floor between the tile so there are no pockets underneath that dont have adhesive under.If like some tilers do just put 4 or 5 dots of adh on the back this makes the tile vulnerable to break if something is dropped on it does that make sense Kev?

 

[Confiteor]

...For me the hardest bit and the most anoying is tiling into window reveals and boxing! I hate it, and i can lose hours trying to get it right.

Damn! I've still to do that!

 

[IvegotsTILE]

Putting up with other trades getting in your way,wanting to walk over where you've just tiled,unpluging your cables,telling you how to do the job.
There making me angry,THEY WOULDN'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M ANGRY

 

[arcadia]

Tiling walls is usually just for looking good and stopping water from damaging surfaces,if the bed of adhesive isn't solid no harm can usually come to them.But with floors this is a different story,apart from having to look good it has to take a lot of hammer.A solid bed of adhesive is as it sounds ,complete coverage acroos the floor between the tile so there are no pockets underneath that dont have adhesive under.If like some tilers do just put 4 or 5 dots of adh on the back this makes the tile vulnerable to break if something is dropped on it does that make sense Kev?

Git you loud and clear..! Thanks for that Gaz.. ..

 

[m4ubs]

I just did my 1st floor after doing my 1st wall job...i have to say the floor was harder. The funny thing is it took me a while to complete and i was buying tools as i was going, eg knee pads (man i needed them !!!), safety goggles ...learnt A LOT from doing my 1st floor...and I agree the hardest for floor is maintaining a solid bed...especially if the floors aren't straight. Another thing i learnt is to use a decent sized bucket to make your mortar...too small and you'l be making adhesive every 15mins too big and it'l dry up !!!

 

[brian c]

The most rewarding part is the grouting and seing the job finished and then the best bit GETTING YOUR LOLLY.

 

[Varley]

I bloody hate silicone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just thought i'd mention that.

 

[GazTech]

You mean tilers mate!!!lol get in the chat room you lot i'm all alone in there:cry_smile:

 

[Fekin]

Now Im not talking from much experiance here, as I have only done my 4 day course, then my kitchen and bathroom, but I found floor tiling was by far and away the easier part of tiling than the walls.
There again, the main wall was very un-even in my tiling bay on the course, so there was no way you could get anywhere near a decent finish trowling the adhesive onto the walls, had to butter ever single tile.
My bathroom was the same, and I had paid a plasterer to skim all the walls first.

The wall that ran the length of the bath had to be stripped back to the brick then redone fully, and there were upto 15mm variations in the depth afterwards, really shoddy job, should never have paid for the job if I had noticed at the time.

So, so far I have had a bit of experiance working with very lumpy wonky wavey walls, but when I did the flooring, 12mm ply nailed down gave me a brilliant flat surface to tile on, and only took me a fraction of the time to fully tile and cut round a toilet base.

All in all, the trickiest thing I found was cutting the flipping trim to go round a window frame, lol