Tiles and Tileing in Thailand

[NickA]

about 1,000baht and up per square meter,

May as well use granite or marble for that price

[lom]

I thought you were deserting us? What d'ya want tiles for?

Building a house for CMn's bird?

[ceburat]

Is it possible to remove tile without breaking them? Or is that a waste of time?

[dirtydog]

Waste of time with ordinary tiles as they are so cheap.

[Little Chuchok]

Is it possable to get "A" grade tiles here at all?

I thought you were deserting us? What d'ya want tiles for?

Take 'em home.Mate of mine wants a bucket load.

[KunKen]

I bought some cement glue for lock the tiles with at the Jotun shop north of Udon.That's the same we use in europe.And the plastic crosses to use between tiles I bought in europe in different mm.Then it's easy to put the tiles on.
And the grout I use is Sika Flex for sealing cracks at the roof and walls.It will never go away, same as the grout you buy here.Can buy in Home Mart or Home Pro.But use dish soap on the finger when you put it on.

[jizzybloke]

i thought you should start with the first tile centered in the doorway and work into the room?

[dirtydog]

Which doorway? Most houses use the same tiles through out the whole floor of the building apart from the bathrooms.

[jizzybloke]

if that is the case then i thought you start from the front door, first tile central in the doorway and work away from it?

[dirtydog]

In principle a great idea, in practise its gonna end up looking crap, lets say the door is off centre of the room by 10cms, you are using 20cm tiles, one side of the room is for arguements sake going to have a cut 10 cm run down one wall while the other side will have a full 20cm tile run down the other side of the room, better to have the odd couple of tiles slightly out by the door than all the way down both sides of the room.

[jizzybloke]

i get your point and i'm glad you see my view too.
i'm no builder or tiler, tried once smashed them up and a friend done it for me.

[Texpat]

I put tiles in each bathroom -- cheap stuff in the guest bathroom and good stuff in the master and downstairs toilet.
The good tiles were imported from Italy, forget the name but logo was some prancing horse. Anyway, the imported stuff looks FANTASTIC, but the grade A Thai tiles look pretty good too, at 1/2 the price. If I had to do it again, I'd select good Thai stuff.
I also put soft-white Thai tiles in the kitchen.

Texpat's tile rules:
#1: If the color appears in the rainbow, forget it. ROYGBIV
#2: If it's shiney, or slippery, forget it -- even for walls.
#3: If any tile includes a depiction of a group of ladies making som-tam, or a naked bird, forget it.
#4: Beige and browns for floors, off-white for walls
#5: Buy the best stuff you can within your budget, regardless of rules 1-4.

And tell the tile guy EXACTLY where you want your toilet paper rolls, towel hangars, shower heads etc. BEFORE he starts.

Amazing how swiftly they'll put the towel rack DIRECTLY under the shower head. (hmph)

[WhiteLotusLane]

I put tiles in each bathroom -- cheap stuff in the guest bathroom and good stuff in the master and downstairs toilet.
The good tiles were imported from Italy, forget the name but logo was some prancing horse.

Yup, those Ferrari carbon fibre tiles will set you back a bit.

Texpat's tile rules:
#1: If the color appears in the rainbow, forget it. ROYGBIV
#2: If it's shiney, or slippery, forget it -- even for walls.
#3: If any tile includes a depiction of a group of ladies making som-tam, or a naked bird, forget it.
#4: Beige and browns for floors, off-white for walls
#5: Buy the best stuff you can within your budget, regardless of rules 1-4.

Excellent. Dare I say it, but you should engrave that on a tile and put on the wall.

[Lily]

Take 'em home.Mate of mine wants a bucket load.

Who do you use to ship stuff home?

[bangsaenguy]

The tiles in our kitchen are light coloured with white grout. The grout gets dirty with constant mopping. I want to seal it to keep it white. I tried some sealer that was like a glaze that did not penetrate the grout. It was not effective. How do I seal the grout to keep it white?

[dirtydog]

Not sure how good those sealers are, obviously the one you used wasn't any good probably best to bleach it every 6 months to a year, just use vyxol toilet cleaner and an old toothbrush, use the 20 percent acidic stuff not the 5 percent, brush it onto the grout, leave for about 30 seconds, quick scrub with the tooth brush and wipe it up, comes up nice and white again