INSTALLATION GUIDE

1.1  PLANNING & PREPARATION IS KEY:

All tiles should be checked for damage before installation and quantities checked to ensure there are enough tiles to complete the project. Small chips can occur in transit, and its best practice to set these aside for your tiler to use as cuts.

 

Before your installer starts, its important to discuss your expectations of how you wish the tiled area to look once finished. Discussing design elements such as the tile layout, including whether rectangular tiles should be laid horizontally or vertically, which tiles should be used in which area before the installation begins can prevent any later problems. 

 

Some tiles have a very consistent look from one tile to the next, so not much planning needs to go into the tile design. However, some items such as marble effect and stone effect tiles have a lot more variation so its important your installer opens up 5 plus boxes at a time and plans how best to continue a pattern to get some harmony from one tile to the next. This especially applies to natural stone and marble.  Note that most tiles do not have a running pattern from one to the next, unless this was specified at the point of order.

 

All substrates to be tiled should be flat, level, clean, dry, and free of dust, grease and any loose material and be as free of movement as possible. Tiles are best fixed to cementitious backer boards 

in accordance with the latest British Standards and never fixed to marine ply or similar. 

 

Lighting is key! For inside tiling, adequate temporary lighting should be in place to enable the tiler to complete the job to the highest standard and ideally it should be as similar as possible once the rooms is complete.

 

For external tiling, please see separate guide in sections 3.1 and 4.1

 

1.2 WATERPROOFING/TANKING/WALL PREP: 

All bathrooms should be adequately waterproofed in wet areas, such as around baths and showers with a good quality tanking kit. Walls should be prepared for tiling using a tile backer board such as ‘Dukkaboard’ to comply with British standards. Walls should not (and need not) be plastered prior to tiling, tile backer boards are a much more efficient way of preparing for tiling.

 

1.3 UNDERFLOOR HEATING:

Most tiles are suitable for use with underfloor heating (UFH), check before ordering. 

Depending on the type of UFH system being used, it may be necessary to fit an ‘uncoupling membrane’ such as ditra matting or anti-crack mat prior to tiling. This helps absorb any movement likely to occur from the subfloor heating and cooling. Combine installing this with flexible adhesive and grout for the best result, following the manufacturer’s instructions. 

Prior to tiling, the UFH system should be fully tested, and then switched off. The heating should then be switched on no sooner than 3 weeks after installation of the tiles, and then by 2 degrees per day above room temperature until the desired temperature is reached. For full information please see the link below:

www.warmup.co.uk

 

1.4 FIXING MATERIALS:

All tiles must be solidly bedded, with at least 90% adhesive coverage using a cement-based tile adhesive, this includes applying adhesive to the back of the tile as well as the substrate you are fixing on to with a notched trowel, to ensure full adhesion. 

 

At SACW, we supply Kerakoll Biogel H40 adhesive which is a single part rapid setting flexible adhesive available in grey and white and is suitable for almost every single type of installation. Discuss which product is best for your project with your tiler, and do check the adhesive manufacturer’s technical instructions if unsure. 

 

For fixing stone, marble and glass tiles or mosaics, we recommend using a white adhesive rather than grey so that the adhesive does not affect the colour of the tiles.

 

Natural materials such as marble and limestone, cement tiles plus some tiles with Craquelle glazes require sealing. For sealing natural stone and cement tiles, we recommend Lithofin MN Stainstop and sealing glazed ceramic tiles we recommend Lithofin KF Stainstop prior to grouting. Full guides can be found at:

https://www.lithofin.com/en-gb/products 

 

At SACW we supply Mapei grouts. These should be selected prior to tiling. Generally grout lines are 2mm thick for rectified porcelain tiles, and larger for non-rectified tiles or those with tumbled edges. Once the grouting is complete its important to pay attention to fully remove any reside from the surface, this is especially the case for tiles with a textured finish where grout can sit in the surface. 

 

Silicone should be applied where walls join in the corners, and to seal joints around baths and shower trays. Silicone is usually available in the same colour as the Mapei grouts used in the rest of the room.

 

1.5 CUTTING TILES: (for cutting porcelain slabs, see section 2.1)

All tiles, including stone, porcelain and ceramic, have varying densities and properties and will behave differently when being cut. It is important to use the best equipment possible in order to achieve the best possible result.

 

Tiles should be cut with either a good quality score and snap machine or a water-cooled, bench power saw with a diamond blade suitable for the type of material being cut. Note, this will usually involve using a different blade for cutting porcelain to stone. For the best results, high quality blades should be used, and replaced once worn otherwise chipping can occur.

 

When doing a corner cut from large tiles, a pilot hole should be drilled at the internal junction of the corner, and then cut from the outside in, towards the hole.  See below image, with the red dot indicating where the hole should be drilled, prior to cutting.