Tiles and Tileing in Thailand

[dirtydog]

Now normal wall tiles are great, these are real soft and easy to cut with the old angle grinder, so lets say we are in your bathroom, the wall on the right has a 3 cm dip in the middle, the wall on the left is perfectly straight, now a 3 cm dip over a 4 meter span is quite a lot, ie the left and the right aint gonna match up, yet the customer will blame the tiler, should the tiler re render the walls to get them straight? yes he could but then we are talking about a differant price range, you just got him in to tile the bathroom not foking rebuild it.

[Marmite the Dog]

So, how long does it take to yile, say, a 10m x 4m shophouse floor? I used to know a chap in the UK who could do it within 2 days.

[dirtydog]

Tile adhesive and cement are differant products.

[dirtydog]

So, how long does it take to yile, say, a 10m x 4m shophouse floor? I used to know a chap in the UK who could do it within 2 days.

Doubt that cos the first day he would screed it to get it level, to finish the job he has at least 93 tiles to cut, 4 days at least.

[attaboy]

Reminds me of something Mexicans do.. They take marble rubble and dump it into cement. The cement block is cut into tiles and polished. It looks real nice. Unfortuantely I can't find any pics. I don't want to take this topic off course but is the marble tile used in LoS imported or is it cut in LoS?

[Eliminator]

Is there some kind of self leveling cement that could be used first and then put the tile in? Seems a cheaper route if available.

[Marmite the Dog]

^ I think the self levelling cement leaves a finish that is too smooth, as they use cement, not tile adhesive to fix the tiles. I suppose if they used tile adhesive, they wouldn't need to waste time chipping away at cement floors.

[Eliminator]

^ That's what I was thinking and then you could be assured of working with a level surface.

[dirtydog]

Now here is a nasty job, a couple of these reconstituted granite tiles have fallen of the wall and need replacing, now obviously as these have so little pourousity they don't stick so good, as you can see by the cement that is left cos none of it came off with the tiles, the pattern of the back of the tile is firmly imprinted into the cement.

To restick the tiles back on first off the old cement needs chipping out otherwise the new tiles would stand proud, now the trouble with this is your gonna be whacking that wall with a hammer and coal chisel to try and get the cement out, now don't forget these tiles fell off by themselves, so how well are the other tiles stuck in place? and how many whacks next to them will loosen them enough for them to fall down aswell? Yep this job is a nightmare waiting to happen.

[Spin]

I used those recon granite tiles once before, total nightmare.
Ended up using silicone to fix the things in place. A bit of a bodge but they will not fall.

[LesBonsTemps]

I have a tile-related question, maybe you can help me.

My cousin and her partner laid tile in my lower level a couple of years ago. It's travertine marble, beautiful but quite porous. I can't seem to get a fix on how often it requires re-sealing -- once a year, every six months?

We drink red wine and I have nightmares of a red stain in the middle of a 40' x 25' room.

[HermantheGerman]

I have a tile-related question, maybe you can help me.

My cousin and her partner laid tile in my lower level a couple of years ago. It's travertine marble, beautiful but quite porous. I can't seem to get a fix on how often it requires re-sealing -- once a year, every six months?

We drink red wine and I have nightmares of a red stain in the middle of a 40' x 25' room.

I just tiled my kitchen with cashmere white granite, so maybe I can help out a bit. Most important thing is don't be "cheap charly" on the impregnation/waterproofing liquid with stain stopper. The good ones are expensive (about € 30 -500ml). How often do you have to reseal it? That is a tough one to answer. Marbel is of course softer then granite, meaning the pours open up more easily when it gets scratched. The more people that walk on your marbel floor the more often you have to seal it or at least polish it.
Another good advice is: don't drink red wine! A good red wine, which usually has a nice deep red color, leaves a mark like a DOG.
If you can't lay off the booze.... put your wine in a non spill plastic baby bottle

[dirtydog]

Time to grout those tiles
First off 1 kilo of grout will do about 5 square meters of grouting, now dont forget to get grout as near to the color of your tiles as possible to help hide those size variations in the tiles.

All you need for grouting is a bowl, some grout, some water, a Thai flip flop and a damp sponge, I didn't bother with the damp sponge as it's my bathroom and the amount of acid my girlfriend uses to clean it it will need regrouting within 12 months.



Mix the grout with water so it is a nice thick consistencey, here we can see where under the tiles was wet and has made the grout to sloopy, still not too much of a problem, with the cut up flip flop spread the grout and get as much as you can into the gaps between the tiles.



As you are doing each areea try to get as much of the excess grout off of the tiles.



Leave for about 20 minutes and then get the rest of the excess grout off of the tiles, once that is done go over the grout lines with a slightly damp sponge to get that all nice and level and smooth.

[dirtydog]

Here we have another problem job, this was actually 2 rooms that have been knocked into one, trouble is they must have started the 2 rooms at the same time and used two different starting points, so, what to do about this?

Got to admit I don't know, you can put a matching cut tile in there but the lines aint gonna match up, put a contrasting tile in there so the eye is drawn to that rather than the tiles that will not line up, we shall see what they done next week.

[dirtydog]

Aahh, I forgot about that little problem and take a piccie tomorrow of how it finished up, anyway here is a nice design to make out of your tiles.

[dirtydog]

Next up we started on the bathroom today, this shall be finished tomorrow as they are working all night tonight, it's only a 2.5 meter by 2 meter bathroom and about low to mid end on the scale of things.



I got to admit I am really not sure about picture tiles, they just don't do it for me, also a lot of the time picture tiles will be a differant size to the main tiles you are using and you aint gonna get a 100 percent job like that, these are pretty ok size wise as we have variations in the tiles we are using, NO, I didn't buy these tiles.

Toothpicks make great spacers for your tiles



The old squater will be smashed out tomorrow and a new one put in.

[Dougal]

here is a nice design to make out of your tiles.

No thank you. If I want to play draughts I reckon I can afford a proper board.

[dirtydog]

Here we have another problem job, this was actually 2 rooms that have been knocked into one, trouble is they must have started the 2 rooms at the same time and used two different starting points, so, what to do about this?

Got to admit I don't know, you can put a matching cut tile in there but the lines aint gonna match up, put a contrasting tile in there so the eye is drawn to that rather than the tiles that will not line up, we shall see what they done next week.

Well, the tiles are pretty close so it doesn't look awful, but given the choice if I was rich and it was my place the whole lot would be knocked up and granite or marble put down.

[dirtydog]

Anyway, we jacked out that old squat toilet, chucked in some 3inch pipe as the waste was in the wrong place, concreted over that and started tiling, generally here 4 inch pipe is used for toilets, it works ok but you really do need like the first meter as 3 inch pipe to get the syphon effect of the toilet going, yep you need the water that is going down the pipe to help suck those turds out of your toilet bowl, the outlet of your toilet is actually about 2 to 2 and a half inches, ie the hole in the base of your throne, quite amazing really that you can get your Sunday Dinner through such a small hole on Monday morning.

[blackgang]

I was worried about the wet slick tiles in the kitchen so I had then use a bathroom finish tiles around the work area of the kitchen as in the pics.





Now I have talked the little lady into a built in kitchen so will do it in the spring.

[dirtydog]

So next we fit the base of the toilet, got to admit I generally just put the whole toilet together and just fit the thing, but my staff wanted to do it this way, ok in the UK it just a mix of putty and oil based paint and just screw the thing down and you can use it straight away, here we white cement the thing into place and you got to leave it for a few hours for the cement to harden off, yes there are holes where you can screw the toilet down but nobody bothers and they just fill the holes with white cement, it works so don't complain when you see this happening

[blackgang]

I had a hell of a time getting mounting flanges and wax rings to mount the toilet properly but finally found them when I went to but an American standard, and if you buy the whole thing it comes with a kit containing the mount flange and wax ring.

[dirtydog]

I was worried about the wet slick tiles in the kitchen

Why would you worry about a wet kitchen floor? Did you used to wet down your kitchen floor in your home country?

I remember a shop we done out, all carpeted floors etc, the downstairs bathroom had just a toilet, bum squirter and sink, the Thai staff kept complaing that there was no drain in the floor, it was just a toilet not a bloody shower room, I just kept asking them if they had waste outlets in their bedrooms, they just kept saying the tiled floor in the toilet couldn't be cleaned as there was no floor waste, and on and on it went

[dirtydog]

I had a hell of a time getting mounting flanges and wax rings to mount the toilet properly

Why would you bother? Generally most Bathrooms here are just one room with a open shower so the water gets every where, so then the whole floor has to be sloped towards the waste outlet, messes up the idea of a nicely made flange a bit

Lets move onto building your bathroom counter, chuck up some blocks or bricks, do your form for the top, do the pour, chuck a lump of granite on top of that, stick a few tiles on and Bobs your Uncle.

[blackgang]

Floors do get wet doing dishes and slopped water while cooking., you never know, and shit happens, Better safe than sorry.
And a toilet mounted properly is always easier to work on if need be and it is the way it is supposed to be done, why do it the Thai way when the correct way is no harder, There is no floor drain in our bathrooms, the only drain is in the shower stalls.