Tiling Up To A Hardwood Fllor

[gbaker]

I am tiling our entrance hallway from the front door. The hallway comes to the living room which has a hardwood floor. How do I join the two together? Do I just grout between the tiles and hardwood floor or do I have to leave a space for the hardwood to expand & contract? I do not want to put a transition strip there if possible.

Thanks

 

[roughcaster]

Hi,
I don't think I would grout the joint between your tiled hallway floor and your living-room hardwood floor.You do need to allow for some expansion.Grout would be to rigid.You can get some really slim neat looking transition strips nowadays which wouldn't spoil the look at all.I wouldn't use silicone.I don't think it would look.Maybe a neat fitting strip of cork that you could fit between the wood and the tiles,and glue just enough at the bottom to hold it in place.To leave a gap wouldn't look good.The cork would be my choice,but then!!!

Roughcaster.

 

[novicetiler]

hi i'm no expert as my name suggests, but here's a few ideas.

The wood will definitely expand and contract, so if you were to use grout then you should use flexible grout... the type you use with heated floors... hoperully you should be alright with that.

alternatively you might use an expansion joint... they look like a grout line from the top, and come in a variety of colour shades. a company called trim line do them.

Or you could leave a three to five mill gap between them and use a coloured caulk

 

[gcol]

If you fill the gap with grout (flexible or otherwise) it will crumble.
You're going to need something there that will allow for expansion - if you fill it with caulk or silicone it'll probably not have sufficient "give" and will cause problems.
A proper expansion joint should fair better - see here for details http://www.imiweb.org/masonrydetails/09_02.htm