Tiling my kitchen floor

[slacky]

Hey guys

I'm thinking about having a go at tiling my kitchen floor myself. It's got vinyl on it now but hoping to replace with tiles. Underneath it's concrete. Now just looking for a few tips on how to lay the tiles as this will be the first time I've done it.

What products do you use when putting the tiles down and do they go straight onto the floor?

[kingnewport]

What I do is to mark the centre of the room at 2 points and string long it. Then sbr or pva the floor ( keep dust down)
Then just take a full tile from the centre line

[slacky]

Centre as in length and width? So where the lines cross put a tile there? I was thinking just starting in one corner and working from that or is that the wrong way? Where's the best place to get glue etc from?

[kingnewport]

No width.
No don't start in the corner , if your rooms not 100% square you might end up with loads of cuts.
You mark it out so yo have a less cuts as possible, if that means moving the centre line abit so be it.
Go to your nearest tile shop. Not bnq etc

[wine~o]

Loose lay the tiles in a cross starting at the centre of the room..what you want to avoid is silly thin cuts at any edge ..

Rooms are almost never square which is why we start somewhere in the middle...........

[royaloakcarpentry]

Never use PVA it can lead to a failure of the tile to substrate bond.

You need a suitable primer which is recommended for use with the tile adhesive you are using.

Tile adhesive needs to be suitable for the tile you are laying. In the main part, I use a rapid set adhesive for floors.

Mark out how best suits the room and end cuts. Normal setting out is to centre from the door opening and not the actual room.

[DIY_Johnny]

Tile adhesive needs to be suitable for the tile you are laying. In the main part, I use a rapid set adhesive for floors.
.

I would just add, from a DIYer's perspective that I would use the non-rapid set. I work way too slow for the rapid set and invariable you might find like many diyers, you make a cock-up of the cuts,push tiles in too far etc, so takes time to redo and in the mean time the adhesive is going off in the bucket.

You might work faster than me but I'm fussy so work slow and methodically

(That's if you don't need to walk on the kitchen floor that day)

[Leif]

I did a small floor using Unibond rapid set cement based adhesive and porcelain tiles. By the time the adhesive was supposed to be hard, it was still a jelly. It took overnight to harden. People told me to avoid cement from B&Q! As per above, it took me ages to do, but it looks good.

Cheap diamond saws from Screwfix or Toolstation are fine, better than scribe cutters.

I marked out as said here, and laid two guides at right angles, nailed to the floor close to the edges, as suggested in books, then tiled to the other sides. The cut tiles round the edges were done the next day. You want the same width of cut tiles round the edges, so it looks neat i.e. don't have full tiles on one side, and half tiles along the opposite side, it looks naff.

Big tiles are hard i.e 60cm sides. And you need a flat floor. My kitchen was coated with self levelling compound to even out the screed. It cracked a lot though. The pro tiler didn't mind.

Make sure your tiles are rectilinear, not all are, either the ones done by a pro in my bathroom are not rectilinear, or he was sh1t at his job.