Tiling

[ub7rm]

A few years ago I decided to tile my kitchen and all went well so buoyed by this success I decided I'd have a go with the bathroom.

We'd decided on black slate tiles which were quite expensive. Then one day I spotted some, at a knockdown price, at a tile shop. 'Unregulated' they said, which meant nothing to me. But they were black slate tiles and cheap.

I also armed myself with an angle grinder with a diamond blade as I'd had trouble with snapping tiles and the like whilst doing the kitchen.

Now, the flat was an old flat, 100 years plus so as you can imagine nothing was straight, level, plumb or flat. The tiles I put in the kitchen were pretty small, so could 'absorb' variations in the wall finish to some extend whereas these slate tiles were pretty big, probably in the range of 10 x 10. Needless to say it soon became apparant what 'ungregulated' meant - not one of the buggers was the same thickness! Added to the variations in the walls this was turning into a fecking nightmare. Not to be disuaded, I decided the best course of action was to bed them in a good thick layer of readymix adhesive grout. The sort this site tells you not to buy.

I struggled on in a fashion, somehow managing to do one wall. Then it came to cutting them. Did I mention this was a small top floor flat? Didn't think there would be too much dust so proceeded to start cutting these ~10mm thick tiles with my angle grinder in a 2x3m bathroom. Well, the dust was biblical - kept having to stop to let it clear so I could see what I was doing!

By this point I was getting well and truly hacked off with it all but kept soldiering on, quality of cutting and so on had long gone out the window but managed to 'finish'. Did I mention these tiles were heavy? Just as I was admiring my handywork a whole bleeding walls worth slipped down the copious amounts of adhesive I'd used into the bath, scratching and denting it as they went in and smashing most of the tiles for good measure.

It wasn't funny at the time, but looking back it was just a total fiasco from start to finish and I will never lay my hands on tiling again.

 

[WabbitPoo]

we feel your pain, friend.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

At last, a proper DIY disaster.

 

[charlie30]

Wow, great write up. I know what you mean by soldiering on through something even through quality goes out the window, it's not a great place to be.

 

[Nozzle]

Tip of the day - sort them into thickness and lay the thickest ones first... if you lay thin ones first then your layer of adhesive is too thin when you want the thickies to stick

Nozzle

 

[SimonH2]

Bit late now, but for the future buy yourself one of those wet tile cutting "saw" tables. The low end ones aren't all that much, and they do make the job just so much easier .... and less dusty !
When I was helping my mate with his bathroom, the large format tiles he had were just too long for my tile cutter, so I used the angle grinder (outside). Pat way through the job I saw that Topps Tiles had an offer on - and it was well worth it. Instead of clouds of dust, it's just a sludge in the bottom of the machine. Well mostly in the bottom of the machine - it sprays everywhere and we nicknamed it Roy Hattersley after his spitting image puppet, so don't use it anywhere that is bothered by the mess
Makes light work of odd shapes that the "score and snap" cutter can't do, and with the diamond blade also did the glass border tiles.

But I know what you means about fitting large tiles on an uneven wall. In hindsight we should have spend a bit more time getting one of the walls flat

 

[gregers]

whenever i use 1 of these tile cutters i wear a bin liner.other wise it looks like ive taken a shower fully clothed.

you might of got away with this if you had only done a few lines high and let it all dry.
hey ho.
made me chuckle,rather you then me.