Floor tiling tips

[Matt Meiser]

Within a week or two I hope to be getting into the meat of my bathroom remodel. I'll be pulling out carpet and linoleum and replacing with tile. I'm planning to use cement board, probably the Hardie product since it looks to be better than the standard stuff which always seems to have broken edges in the stacks at Lowes. What I don't know is how to install that? Do I just screw it down to the subfloor? BTW, the subfloor is OSB (15yo house.) Do I put gaps between the sheets? Mortar them somehow?

I'm planning to buy an inexpensive tile saw or rent one, whichever is cheaper. A friend bought one at Harbor Freight do do his laundry room and entry way and found it did a sufficient job for a homeowner. I know Menards sells something similar.

I am planning to leave all the baseboard in place and run the tile up to it, hiding the egde with a shoe molding. I'm afraid that I won't get the baseboard removed and reinstalled without damage or poor fit. What we have isn't a stock profile anywhere I've found so I need to minimize risk. We needed one place which someone in my club made by hand with hollows and rounds. No way I'd want to do the whole room that way. I'll be installing the cabinets first too to save the square footage under them.

We are putting in a clawfoot tub so I'll probably have to make round holes in tiles for the plumbing there. Odds are against those happening to end up at edges so I'll need to drill them somehow. Any suggestions on that that will be inexpensive--I'll only be making 3 holes of two different sizes?

[Mike Cutler]

Matt.

When we did our bathroom remodel we screwed the substrate material down with the screws on 4" centers, ,no gaps, per the Ortho tiling book we bought.
The floor has to be as perfectly level as you can make it, or your tiles will crack down the line.

I would seriously reconsider removing that molding, or protecting it very, very well. Tiling a floor is messy, especially once the grouting begins.

Buy a really nice set of knee pads. The cheap ones get wet and grout ends up inside them.

[Keith Starosta]

Matt, have you ever checked out the John Bridge "Tile Your World" forum? It's an unreal wealth of tiling knowledge. I know when I finally get around to doing my MB, it will be MY main source of info...

- Keith

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Matt.....Taunton Press printed a book....Setting Tile by Michael Byrne...Fantastic resource!

[Jude Herr]

i'd recommend removing the molding and use your tile as molding. It gives it a great look. You can use the same floor tile cut to 3" wide pieces (a 45 degree angled edge looks nice and can be easily cut on the tile saw) or purchase a corresponding floor trim tile to match your tile. The tile can be installed with mortar as you are laying the floor or after your floor tiles have set. You can either grout the edges or use a SANDED caulk in a color similar to your grout.

[Steve Clardy]

Matt. I prefer to set the vanities and cabinets on the tile.

No quarter round, trim around the cabinets would have to be put down that way to cover up the gaps.

Down the road, the vanity may need to be pulled up for some reason and replaced. Spring a bad leak in your plumbing, etc.

You won't save that much tile by not tiling the whole floor

[Brett Baldwin]

Two things I can think of off-hand. The concrete board has special screws for secure it to the sub-floor. When youlay the tile, be SURE the whole tile is getting set in the thinset and there are NO dry areas. Pull up tiles you've laid to check this. There's nothing worse than a hollow thud from a tile when you drop something on it. DAMHIKT:rolleyes:

[Tony De Masi]

Matt, couple of things come to mind here. First I would suggest that you carefully remove the baseboards. Just take your time with them. Don't try to pound the nails out of the holes they went in, just pull them out the back side. If you keep the baseboards in place then you will lose some of the height. Measure the thickness of the backer board, plus the mastic, plus the tile, and you will certianly not have the same profile that you started with.

Also, like Steve suggested, i would tile the entire floor to include where the vanilty will go. You really aren't saving that much in tile or time.

Tony

[Matt Meiser]

My whole house has the same baseboards. They are all installed right about the subfloor and the flooring covers whatever thickness. I've been watching other's houses and have noticed the same thing there. So I was thinking to keep the top at a consistent height I would have to trim some off the bottom to match the height in the adjacent room.

[Derek Jones]

Matt,
Check out the James Hardie wesite, I believe they have there specs in installing there products in pdf format. First, for the record I am not a tile pro, and I believe that most pros have differing opinions on how to put down hardie products. I tried to do a lot of research prior to doing our tile. I just put down 400sq ft of tile in our kitchen, laundy, and bath.
-Make sure your subfloor is solid.
-Use a 1/4 board and don't just screw it to the subfloor, set it in thinset then screw down
-Make sure the heads of the screws are counter-sunk
-No gaps between them.
-When you get ready to place the tile put fiberglass mess tape on the seams and then spread your thinset
-Use a polymer fortified thinset for both setting the hardie product and the tile

I agree with the others, you should try and remove the trim. By the time you put down a layer of thinset, then hardie product, then another layer of thinset, and finally your tile the baseboard loses a good inch of height. And I also agree with Steve that you want you vanity to set on the tile.

Good luck-I hope this helps.

Derek

[Bryan Rocker]

When I install ceramic tile floors I make sure its level and I use concrete board, sometimes called wonder board. I put the wonder board down with a thin layer of thin set and using a roofing nailer I nail the concrete board down. Keep in mind the nails just help keep it down while it is curing. I used either 1 1/2" nails. The hold down power comes from the thin set. Do not sweat the jagged seams they will be taken care of when you smooth your seams. Before I set the tiles I butter all seems and make sure is smooth and as level as possible.

The home owners love the tile and not one tile has cracked or broken. This is in sharp contrast to the new house I bought in Oklahoma where they had to replace 15 tiles at closing........

Definitely remove the baseboards. If you don't remove them the odds are you will leave spots of concrete on them.

Do not go cheap on the thin set you will be using to hold down the wonder board. Poor quality thin sets do not bond well and it will pull loose later down the road.

As to the tile saw, I bough the $299 saw on sale for $199 and it has worked like a champ. It worked great on my granite counter top and did extremely well on the last HFH house I did, some 300 ft of tile. I did buy the more expensive notched diamond blade which improves the cutting performance but these blades aren't cheap. I believe I paid $45??? for mine.

If your cabinets are already out you can put the tile under them. I would not pull cabinets to put tile under them. Tile under cabinets is wasted tile. Yes its easier but pulling installed cabinets brings a whole host of possible oops's to the plate :D

[Mark Rios]

Matt,
Check out the James Hardie wesite, I believe they have there specs in installing there products in pdf format. First, for the record I am not a tile pro, and I believe that most pros have differing opinions on how to put down hardie products. I tried to do a lot of research prior to doing our tile. I just put down 400sq ft of tile in our kitchen, laundy, and bath.
-Make sure your subfloor is solid.
-Use a 1/4 board and don't just screw it to the subfloor, set it in thinset then screw down
-Make sure the heads of the screws are counter-sunk
-No gaps between them.
-When you get ready to place the tile put fiberglass mess tape on the seams and then spread your thinset
-Use a polymer fortified thinset for both setting the hardie product and the tile

I agree with the others, you should try and remove the trim. By the time you put down a layer of thinset, then hardie product, then another layer of thinset, and finally your tile the baseboard loses a good inch of height. And I also agree with Steve that you want you vanity to set on the tile.

Good luck-I hope this helps.

Derek



I'm going to add a couple of things here Derek, if I may......

As Derek mentioned, make sure that your plywood/subfloor is sound and relatively smooth.

As Derek mentioned, use your good electric drill to screw down the Hardi Board, with the Hardi Board screws, to get the screw heads perfectly flush or a litle (a hair) below. Just don't leave them sticking up.

You can have a/some small gaps between the sheets. Hardi recommends 1/8". You will spread a layer of thinset over the OSB to set the Hardi board in. The Hardi Board will have a screw pattern molded into the surface so that you won't have to guess at the screw spacing. After screwing down the Hardi Board, you will tape the joints like you would drywall. One smooth coat of thinset over the joints to fill the gaps and cover the mesh tape. Let the thinset dry overnight. This will prevent you from catching the tape with the trowel when spreading the thinset for the tile. Also, you won't have to worry about putting your hand or knee in the mud while moving around on the floor.

After the thinset dries on the joints, run a 3" to 4" putty knife (you will probably have used this to tape the HB joints) and give the floor a quick scrape. This will knock down the little bumps that may be left over. This will ALSO tell you if you have any screws sticking up. If you can hear the screw against the knife, they're too high.

The thinset that derek mentions can be bought at a BORG. HD has a $6 or $7 thinset but this is the cheaper stuff. The fortified poly stuff should run you somewhere between $13 -$16 per bag.

As most others have mentioned, the baseboard really should come up. In the long run, the job just won't come out as well if you don't. If someone has caulked the baseboard to the wall then carefully run a razor knife along the gap to cut through the caulk. Clean excess off of the wall and the baseboard later.

Let the tile/thinset cure for 24 hours before grouting.

And may I suggest an epoxy grout? With an epoxy grout you won't have to seal the grout, the epoxy grout is virtually stain and waterproof. It's a great product but ti's expensive. Here iin N. CA it's about $85 for a kit that will do about 45 sq.ft. Expensive, but in my opinion it's definately worth it. I try VERY hard to talk all my customers into using it. All have so far (since I've started using it), all have been VERY happpy with it and it has done very well. Otherwise, plan on resealing you grout about once a year, every six months to assure that you don't get stains. The sealer is pretty expensive as well. I feel that the epoxy grout is cheaper in the long run.

The epoxy grout is a little tricky to use if you haven't used it before but, if you follow the instructions (that come with it) EXACTLY you should be fine. The epoxy grout comes as a kit. Everything is premeasured and they give you everything you need, even the bucket to mix it in and a sponge. The bucket is a good size for grout so use it and maybe leep it for other time when you need to mix up some sort of mud.

Grout to the wall around the edges. Leave a gap between the tile and the wall but FILL the gap with the grout.

As a compromise, you can lay the Hardi Board on the whole floor, then set your cabinets and tile up to them, leaving the same gap that you have on the rest of the floor. This is my preferred method for most applications.

Feel free to PM me if you want/need any info.

HTH


Here's a PDF of Hardi's installation instructions for their 1/4" product: http://www.jameshardie.com/homeowner/pdf/backer-install-us.pdf

[Brent Dowell]

I'd say remove the molding.

If you can believe it, the house we had was a model home, and they had put carpeting in the bathrooms. :eek:

Well, we never really got around to doing anything about it when we lived there, but once we moved, we decided to update the house a bit to make it sell better. Since the market is down, we are not in a huge hurry, and we come back every now and then.

I replaced the kitchen floor tile, and the tile in the 3 bathrooms.

Big tips that I'd have are:

1) I got an inexpensive tile saw with a diamond blade. It worked just fine.
2) Buy all of your tile at once and then 'box' it. Take the tile out and
mix them up from the different boxes. I didn't in one room
and you can see some areas from the same box had a bit of a
different sheen. I had gotten this advice, and then wished I
hadn't ignored it.
3) Get really, really, really, good knee pads.
4) Using something like visio to sketch out where your tiles
will layout against the walls, doors, etc. I did this
and am pretty happy about where the lines layed out.
5) get a nice, straight, jointed 2x4 or something to make sure the
tiles line up flat and level with each other.

I guess that's it. I'm pretty happy with how the tile in our house came out, and it wasn't that hard. Just take your time and it should come out good.

[Pat Doble]

I second Keith's suggestion of John Bridge's 'Tile Your World' fourm. I believe you'll find the answer to any and every question you come up with.