Tile Prep Step By Step With The Tile House

The professionals from The Tile House offer us some top tile tips to save time, money and your sanity.

Prevention is better than: “Why didn’t I listen? Now I have to rip out my floors”. When it comes to tiling, if you don’t prepare the underfloor, you might as well wave goodbye to your wallet! Your first step is good prep. When choosing tiles, before you select your style, colour, or texture, you need to get over any underfloor preparation resistance. Out of sight is not out of mind when your floors crack or rot. Here is a simple underfloor pneumonic: CIMJ. Don’t be put off if it sounds like something out of the Kardashians: Convection, Insulation and Movement Joints.

Convection with Conviction

Remember science at school? Of course not, so here’s a quick convection crash course: Convection is the transfer of heat from one medium to another. It is helpful in the event that we want to trap, or in this case insulate, the heat during winter and keep the heat out in summer. It’s not inside it’s… underneath. Which underfloor insulation will you use? The optimum choice is high-density rigid insulation, which will prevent heat from escaping. Being green is cost effective and of course, environmentally friendly too.

Know thy floors Before you insulate you need to know where to place the material. There are two basic types of floor construction: Suspended and solid flooring. Where the insulation goes will depend on the floor structure.

Suspended floors: Insulation is placed between the last joist and wall. The word joist (in case you are interested in the linguistics of flooring, comes from the French word meaning ‘giste’ or ‘supporting beam’).

Solid Floors: Insulation simply goes directly onto the concrete floor. (No fancy French words here, just good old solid English, much like the floor).

Singing in the shower

Your song may turn to lament if you haven’t waterproofed your shower to prevent damage. Between the tiles and the wall, you will need to use a waterproof product, preferably cementious waterproofing. Remember you also need a waterproofing grout product.

Moving and Grooving Unless you are building a mansion or palace, chances are you won’t need movement joints.

Examples of Tile Expansion Joints: But who knows, your ship (or palace) may just sail in. Radical changes in temperature cause movement which can lead to cracking. A movement or expansion joint works like a concertina – expanding or contracting to allow movements to take place. Inside large shopping centres you can see movement joints. (Spotting the movement joint in a mall is more exciting than Pokéman GO).

Smile & Tile: Once your underflooring is prepared, the fun begins. Pop into The Tile House for an inspiring selection of quality tiles to suit any style. Now that you’ve finished the underflooring you’re ready to tile your house.

For more great advice and practical tiling solutions, visit www.thetilehouse.co.za.