Lippage on large tiles - help needed!

[delosdos]

Hi Guys,

Hoping someone here can help out a determined, but amateur tiler! I recently stripped back the plaster and re-plasterboarded my bathroom with moisture resistant plasterboard, and i've tanked up the shower area, etc.

Now, here's the problem - this is my first tiling job (diy for my own house) and I am using large 30 x 60cm porcelain tiles with BAL Single Part Flexible adhesive (not pre-mixed) and I decided to use a brickwork/running bond pattern, with 3mm spacers. I screwed a batten on to the wall, made sure it was level, and began tiling. First row went fine, I took my time, but when I got on to the second row I noticed 1-2mm lippage all over the place. When I tried to correct it another corner/edge would pop out somewhere else. It was very hard to manoeuvre the tiles, and I'm wondering if I put far too much adhesive on the wall or if my mix was too thick?

Anyway, after an hour I was unhappy with the way it was going and having spent so much time with the substrate/boarding I decided I couldn't just let it set the way it was, and correcting it just didn't seem to be working. So, rather than live with a poor finish I took it all off. I scraped the remaining adhesive off the wall. The adhesive is non-rapid set so it came off easily and now that I've cleaned up the tiles in a large bucket I'm back to square one. I'm a bit of a perfectionist/idiot so I'd rather start again than live with something that's going to annoy me every time I look at it! So the big question is - how can I avoid it going wrong for a second time?

I'm considering buying a Rubi/Raimondi levelling system kit - would anyone recommend these or perhaps a similar alternative? Also, from what I've read online, it seems I may be making life difficult by going for a brickwork pattern - is this true? Finally, I was wondering if I should have got 5mm spacers instead. Is using 3mm spacers a bad idea (e.g. will it just emphasise the lippage even more)?

Any advice, tips or hints would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance

Cheers,

Andy

[philrab66]

Hi Guys,

Hoping someone here can help out a determined, but amateur tiler! I recently stripped back the plaster and re-plasterboarded my bathroom with moisture resistant plasterboard, and i've tanked up the shower area, etc.

Now, here's the problem - this is my first tiling job (diy for my own house) and I am using large 30 x 60cm porcelain tiles with BAL Single Part Flexible adhesive (not pre-mixed) and I decided to use a brickwork/running bond pattern, with 3mm spacers. I screwed a batten on to the wall, made sure it was level, and began tiling. First row went fine, I took my time, but when I got on to the second row I noticed 1-2mm lippage all over the place. When I tried to correct it another corner/edge would pop out somewhere else. It was very hard to manoeuvre the tiles, and I'm wondering if I put far too much adhesive on the wall or if my mix was too thick?

Anyway, after an hour I was unhappy with the way it was going and having spent so much time with the substrate/boarding I decided I couldn't just let it set the way it was, and correcting it just didn't seem to be working. So, rather than live with a poor finish I took it all off. I scraped the remaining adhesive off the wall. The adhesive is non-rapid set so it came off easily and now that I've cleaned up the tiles in a large bucket I'm back to square one. I'm a bit of a perfectionist/idiot so I'd rather start again than live with something that's going to annoy me every time I look at it! So the big question is - how can I avoid it going wrong for a second time?

I'm considering buying a Rubi/Raimondi levelling system kit - would anyone recommend these or perhaps a similar alternative? Also, from what I've read online, it seems I may be making life difficult by going for a brickwork pattern - is this true? Finally, I was wondering if I should have got 5mm spacers instead. Is using 3mm spacers a bad idea (e.g. will it just emphasise the lippage even more)?

Any advice, tips or hints would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance

Cheers,

Andy

Have you checked all the tiles are the same thickness. If you use a proper trowel for tiling you should be able to get them to sit flush with each other very easily if your background is flat. Have you checked that. If you are pressing one corner and another is popping up that would say to me you have a high spot somewhere. If you do you could use a trowel with a bigger gauge to compensate but then it is a bit more fiddly.

You could watch this to see if you are doing anything wrong putting the adhesive on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WbomvVyGY

[royaloakcarpentry]

Lipping is normal for large format tiles. Place two together face to face or back to back and hold up to the light, you will see that they do not touch for the whole length but are bowed. You will not tile in brick/broken bond without lipping showing. DIY or 35 tyear master tiler, it ain't going to happen.

Get it as best you can, 2mm spacers are the norm for those tiles and when it is grouted it will look fine.

Now and again you will get lipping that is bad, normally on cheaper tiles. Then it is a case of laying them with joints in line.

Can't comment on tile batten or self levelling battens, we don't use them. We use laser level and tile direct from the floor level.

[delosdos]

Have you checked all the tiles are the same thickness. If you use a proper trowel for tiling you should be able to get them to sit flush with each other very easily if your background is flat. Have you checked that. If you are pressing one corner and another is popping up that would say to me you have a high spot somewhere. If you do you could use a trowel with a bigger gauge to compensate but then it is a bit more fiddly.

You could watch this to see if you are doing anything wrong putting the adhesive on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WbomvVyGY

Hi, thanks for getting back to me on this! I have watched a lot of the Ultimate Handyman videos, but somehow completely missed this one. I've just watched it and it was actually very useful, thanks! The plasterboards are pretty flat, across the whole surface there may be a very slight gradient here and there, but it definitely shouldn't account for the amount of lippage I was seeing. I'm at work at the moment, but when I get home I'm going to check the tile thickness, and whether or not they are bowed. If there are any variations they're going to be very slight, but I'm thinking even a slight variation would be very noticeable on such large tiles.

[delosdos]

Lipping is normal for large format tiles. Place two together face to face or back to back and hold up to the light, you will see that they do not touch for the whole length but are bowed. You will not tile in brick/broken bond without lipping showing. DIY or 35 tyear master tiler, it ain't going to happen.

Get it as best you can, 2mm spacers are the norm for those tiles and when it is grouted it will look fine.

Now and again you will get lipping that is bad, normally on cheaper tiles. Then it is a case of laying them with joints in line.

Can't comment on tile batten or self levelling battens, we don't use them. We use laser level and tile direct from the floor level.

Thanks! Reading this has made me feel a little bit more relaxed about it. I can't confirm right now as I'm at work, but I'm thinking the tiles must be slightly bowed. I did think it was strange how some parts of the tile seemed to show more or less lippage than other parts. For instance - the middle section of a tile, where you have two corners from adjacent tiles above/below to deal with, was particularly tricky to get level when compared to the corners. It seemed impossible to get both middle & corner joins level.

I'm going to try putting a few tiles against each other as you suggested to see if there are any obvious differences. The tiles were not obviously wonky at first glance so I think any differences are going to be subtle, but appreciate how this could be more noticeable with such large tiles, once they're on the wall. Anyway, very much appreciate the advice and i'll let you know what I find out later!

Do you think it's worth switching to a straight line pattern or should I just continue with the brick work pattern and accept that some small amount of lippage is unavoidable with large tiles? Is this the norm? I think it's perhaps more obvious because the tiles have a very straight edge with only a very slight bevel, if the bevel was larger it would probably hide the lippage altogether.

I've also ordered a Rubi levelling kit and some Lash wedges to try out so hopefully these will give me an advantage as a complete novice - having spent a bit on the tiles / walls / etc, reckon it's worth trying to get it right, we'll see how it goes

[Russkirk77]

Hi
With 30 x 60 brick-bond everything needs to be flat. Normal tiling follows the contours and you dont notice the few mm "unflatness" in the tiling.However when you lay a flat tile on top of two tiles that are slightly off you will see lips. It may also be partly to do with bowed tiles but if the tiling is flat then you can get the lips to be unnoticeable.
Best thing is to get a long level ,as long as you can get on the wall and use it to make sure all the tiles in the first course (horizontally) are touching it all over. Use a little level to check the vertical level on every tile. Then when the first course is perfectly flat, sides are flush and there is a reasonable vertical level,,move on to the second course. Keep rechecking as you go on for ridges.

[delosdos]

OK, so having played around with the tiles last night it turns out that they are indeed bowed. If i place two of the 30x60cm tiles together, standing on their short edge and face to face I can see a 1mm gap at the top. The gap appears to be on both ends, because when I squeeze the bottom of the two tiles together then the gap at the top increases.

What's happened is the manufacturer has stacked the tiles face down, and for what ever reason the tiles have sagged down in the middle. You don't notice it in the pack because all of the additional tiles in the pack are also bowed by 1mm in the middle, great

I hadn't realised it, but after doing some research online it seems like this is a very common problem with large, heavy porcelain tiles. Being an amateur I didn't know anything about it! Apparently it's worse when you're using a brick-work pattern because you get the ends of the tiles meeting the middle of other tiles (e.g. bowed bits, with non-bowed bits) and it ends up looking a bit like a basket-weave pattern with some bits lipping under, and some over. This is made a lot more obvious by the LED spotlights we're using in the bathroom, doh!

So I'm now having to decide whether I'm happy to put up with the brickwork pattern and it's weave-like lipping, or ditch it and just stack the tiles horizontally or vertically with straight grout lines. Incidentally, does anyone know what's more popular these days? Vertical (portrait) or horizontal (landscape)?

Here's an example of vertical: http://tinyurl.com/mh2zq5z
...and here's an example of horizontal: http://tinyurl.com/p38rq6d

I could always take the tiles back to Topps and buy some smaller, less annoying ceramic tiles. I am beginning to wish we'd just gone with ceramic tiles to be honest, after scraping off plaster, MR boarding, tanking, etc. And, not only are these tiles bowed, they're rock solid too, making drilling a total nightmare. They do look nice though! Oh well, you learn by experience I guess

[wine~o]

Personal preference, I prefer the "Portrait" orientation as opposed to "Landscape"

Portrait = Vertical

Landscape = Horizontal.

Bearing in mind that portrait can make a room feel taller and Landscape can make it seem wider/longer..

[delosdos]

Hi - quick update, decided to go with vertical (portrait) tiles in the end. Started last night, and so far the lippage is much, much less noticeable than it was with the brickwork pattern so we're happy :)

I've attached a couple of photos of the tiles loosely arranged in brickwork pattern so you can get an idea of how bad it was. See below, notice how the bowed tiles create a basket weave lippage effect. The position of the spotlights and the shadows they cause make it worse

Pic1

Pic2

[Russkirk77]

Holy moly!! thats quite a bow. I like the horizontal..Always looks nice and especially if you include some kind of fancy border tile.

[OchAye]

I would go with Horizontal tiling if you are in a modern house (i.e. ceiling height around 2.4 metres). If at such low height you go vertical it is only 4 tiles heigh ...

Anyway, I think the curvature in your photo is too much and now that you know about it you will always be looking at it and probably end up not liking it. I seem notice the tiles have a sharp edge (like being cut) which also means they probably have to be spaced closer to each other to appear to provide a seamless tilling (i.e. hide the grout as much as possible). Why don't you try them straight, at least then you will lose the bowing issue?

Good on you though that you got to the bottom of the problem (whereas I chickened out from tilling my bathroom and in retrospect I would not have made as a good a job as the guy who did it for me).

[royaloakcarpentry]

Those tiles are dog shite. Luckily we don't come across them thatr bad too often.

Topps.............special offer??? They do stock some rubbish, well a lot of it lol.

[delosdos]

Yeah, to be honest I was really surprised at how much the tiles were bowed, but then i'm new to this and apparently it is quite common with large tiles, as I discovered

This was the second issue we've had as originally our tiles were slightly different sizes (2mm difference), but that was another amateur mistake! I hadn't realised that different manufacturers have different levels of accuracy (we were using 1 set for the front wall, and another set for the left/right/back wall, so the grout lines would be way off). Kinda felt like I'd really done everything the hard way, but oh well - practice makes perfect!

I got cracking with the tiling again this evening. As you can see in the pics below I used Rubi levelling clips near each corner. As this is my first attempt at tiling it definitely helped, at least until i'd started getting the hang of it a bit more. I've not tried the Lash wedges yet, but i'm fairly sure they'd be just as effective. Anyway, the lippage issue has all but disappeared now we've abandoned the brick-work pattern. Going to be a few weeks worth of work at my pace I reckon, but at least I should be fit by the end of it

This is what the wall looks like tonight:







The big hole on the right is for a face plate. Didn't want to bother but the electrician told me it would be needed to meet building regs as i'm putting up a mirror with a light over to the left. At least the next occupants wont electrocute themselves

Anyway, thanks for all the advice, much appreciated!

Cheers,

Andy