tiling beginner

[Burnz0]

i'm in the process of sorting my house out and one of the last things to do is the bathroom. I'm having a shower over the bath and on the same wall in the corner i've got a vanity unit to go in. Since ive set it out like this im going to do full height tiles on that wall and then bring them round both corners to the next walls - but not the full length of the wall (this is to cover the corner of the bath where the shower goes and to get some kind of symmetry on the other wall). Fortunately, on the shower wall there's the door into the room so this seems like a good place to stop the tiles with only a small bit above the doorway visible where the tiles stop and plaster starts. On the opposite wall, there's a window at roughly the same distance in.

I had someone come round today and it looks like it'll be more expensive than i'd budgeted for and due to other things costing more than expected im going to have a crack it myself. My plasterers skimmed all the walls and fixed the wonkyness of the main bath wall so dare i say it it looks like a relatively simple job - for someone who knows what they're doing!

The main things i wanted advice on were the setting out - ie. where do i start, what do i look for? i was thinking putting the first one in central to the wall and then measuring up to work out what cuts would be left at each end. If there is a cut do i bring the remainder of tile round to the adjoining wall? where the tiles stop and plaster starts - do i need to use an edging strip? ive seen this looks quite bad in friend's houses? also, if im going up to the edge of the window, should i just line the edging strip with the window edge?

this is not to try and sting all the pro tilers out there, but how much would you expect to pay for a 1 main wall 2.5mx2m, and then two adjoining walls - one is 1mx2m, the other .5mx2m. On top of this will be the floor which is 2.5x2 minus the space for the bath. I was quoted £500ish which seemed quite steep but working it out on the square metre charges b&q quote it seems okay?
finally, he mentioned using wacker board on the floor - probably 4 sheets at £18 each? is this the same as aquapanel?

[philprime]

I always find the centre of the wall and tile both ways from centre

You can carry on the cut tile around the corners depending on what tiles your are using there may not be much cutting

Tile trim does look better on edges but it's down to yourself if you use it personnal I would

[royaloakcarpentry]

What tiles are you using. Have you got a link to them?

[haveagohero]

I wouldn't let b&q fitters set foot in my house personally, heard a lot of really bad reports. Without looking at it the price doesn't sound too bad, i would be using backer boards on the floor. You can sometimes return the tile round the wall but unless both walls are perfectly vertical the cut part of the tile will not fit properly. How thick are the tiles that are going on the wall? plaster skim can support 20kg/m2

[Burnz0]

These for the wall - although not decided on the colour, possible the lemon zest:
http://www.wallsandfloors.co.uk/quick-s ... ompendium/

interestingly, my local shop charges about £27 for the colours and £17 for the whites so if i go for anything but white i'll be saving a good £100 just for the walls. They're 6mm thick

I haven't decided on the floor yet as im a bit unsure about getting the sizes to match up or if i should even be worrying about it. The wall tiles are 148mm which will leave the 2mm for the grout but i can't seem to find many floor tiles in 300mm
I'm also unsure what i'd do round the "skirting" - should i cut the floor tiles in half or use a wall tiles in a similar colour to the floor - again it all depends on getting sizes that match up

As for the backerboard - any suggestions on brands etc. - ideally i'd go as thin as possible although the more aren't that level as i don't want to lose too much height

[m3 fitter]

How many sq.metres do you calculate your walls & floors ?
For the floor use Schluter ditra matting http://www.schluter.com/6_1_ditra.aspx 4mm thick

[Burnz0]

for the walls its about 9 sq.m and the floor is 5 - both allowing 10% for wastage

[Burnz0]

ive seen that ditra matting advertised elsewhere but i was sort of put off as it doesn't look particularly substantial. The boards aren't that straight to one another and im pretty sure theres a drop from left to right so i was leaning towards the backerboard that i can pack out to try and sort the level out a bit

[m3 fitter]

used ditra for 8-9 years, no failures... if not knauf aquapanel 12.5mm, Dukka board 12mm contract is also very good. i would recommend either of them, tiling would be approx £28.00-£30.00 in this current climate per sq.metre.. based on charges in the south, for volume can go down to £22.00 or a dayrate of £150-180 on average per tiler. Hope it helps

[Burnz0]

sorry, when i said not very substantial i meant in terms of creating a level base - not for the water penetrating etc. Since the floor's a bit uneven i assumed something more solid would be better but im open to using the ditra - whichever is easiest/cheapest to fit really.
Yep, having done more looking based on a per metre basis it's probably not too bad but given that (to me at least) it looks like a fairly straight forward job i'd have thought a pro would get it done in two days so was budgeting for the £300-400 mark. £500 is a bit more but im now thinking that may have included tiling the bath panel which he would make - until i receive his proper quote i'll struggle to work out exactly what was what. Either way, its £3-500 that i could potentially save and also have a crack at doing it myself. If it looks like im going to run into problems ill just stop and get someone in and pay whatever it costs!

[m3 fitter]

ok.. good luck.. ditra is adhered to the boards after priming with an acrylic primer.. most tilers will work on a sq.metre cost as opposed to daywork, if you start the project and need someone to complete it, it will be dayrate as finishing off someone elses work cannot be costed per sq.metre.. i would suggest you wait until quotes come in and leave it to the pros if not entirely confident, as the tiling is the look, and end result..

[aeromech3]

Burnz0, to give an idea consider:If your walls are not vertical with square corners, ceiling straight and horizontal you are going to do a lot of cutting; if you are fitting coving then ceiling line not an issue. Mark a 250mm line on an A4 sheet, mark mid point and step 15mm out as PP suggests, you end up with 15 full tiles and two approx 50mm widths, continue same exercise for the other walls. If your walls are good then also try a full tile from the most visible corner and see what you get and how it looks.
My 1st bathroom attempt, I used a £26 cutter, pure misery and loads of waste, next one bought a semi pro cutter and a cheap electric rotary tile saw total cost £125 , utopia; of course you can hire both but blades are normally extra. Good luck and hope you have plenty of hobby time.

[Burnz0]

m3 fitter - im not entirely confident but thats simply because everything ive done so far that looked easy turned out to be more tricky than expected. I get the principle, its just putting it into practice. As for getting a pro in at £20-30 - it looks like my quote will be at the higher end. I think it was broken down to 330ish for the walls and 150 for the floor. The floor area will be 2.56x1.8 minus 1.7*.7 for the bath which i think works out at just over 3m so going on the basis of 4m to round upwards thats closer to £40 a metre. It may be that i can find someone a bit cheaper out there - someone on mybuilder quoted 2 days at £240 but im a bit sceptical that someone could be so cheap without seeing it first.

[royaloakcarpentry]

FFS get away from mybuilder, ratemytrade, ratedpeople type sites. Nothing but a con. You will only get a competent craftsman from any of them if a miracle happens.

Price V Day.....................why would I charge a price per M2 and earn less for a days work than my day rate would be due to lack of area to be tiled. Doesn't make sense.

You need to know how the tiler is working. Tiling walls apart from bottom row, then floor and bottom row and then grouting. Walls complete, then floor and grouting complete. Is he centering a wall and leaving 5hit 50mm rips at either end, as per earlier suggestion in a post. All needs to be taken into account.

M3 will tell you and all commercial tilers or house bashers (me) will tell you that tiling looks a peace of pi55. What can be easier than putting up 200X200 tiles. Nothing really, if the tiles are all exactly the same size and square. What about when there is a 2mm difference in many of them.

[Burnz0]

I'm not sure if i agree with you completely on the mybuilder thing - surely it's a very good way of getting recommendations rather than randomly picking someone out of the book and then hoping for the best? I admit there's some obvious flaws and potential for people to abuse it but i think in principle it's a very good idea. My experience of it so far is that there seems to be a lot of general tradesman bidding on the jobs rather than specialists e.g. the chap that quoted the 240 looks like a general builder rather than a tiler and from his reviews there aren't any that mention tiling at all.

i'm a bit confused by this 50mm at the end thing? my main wall is 2460 and the tiles are 150 including the 2mm grout. If I centre it I'll get 7 tiles either side and then a final tile that will need cutting that should be in the region of 100mm which seems okay to me? From the two corners I then need to go 93cm to the door frame and in the other 48cm to the window edge which is where the tiles will stop. I doubt the door frame will be completely plumb but the window should be thereabouts since it has just been plastered. I was thinking that i should start from the corners with the remainder of the cut tiles and then work out from there which will mean cuts at the window edge and the door frame but in both cases the tile will be a fairly decent size of 100mm or so. Does this sound about right or should i be aiming for a full tight on the window edge and work into the corner from there?


I don;t doubt that tiling is a lot more difficult than it looks but so far ive found pretty everything ive tried to be the same but if we all paid for the pros then there would be no such thing as DIY? I don't object to paying to get someone in either as i'm sure they'd do a better job but when you're strapped for cash spending £500 or so just on the labour for something that im told my all my tradesman mates is doable myself then im tempted to have a crack and save the money

aeromech - you say the cheap cutter was useless? i dont know if i can afford nor justify spending over £100 on a cutter and if im doing this it starts making paying the pro more tempting. How bad was it and would a compromise of something in the £50 region do?