Tile Installation

Tile is unforgiving. It records every mistake made beneath it and it does so permanently — a floor that was not flat produces lippage you feel underfoot, a substrate that moves produces cracked grout lines within a season, and a layout decided on the fly produces sliver cuts in the most visible corner of the room.

Our tile work is a large share of what clients mention in reviews, and it is the part of a renovation where the difference between competent and careless is most obvious to anyone standing in the room.

Substrate preparation

Before any tile is set, the surface has to be flat within tolerance and stable. Large-format tile is the least forgiving — the bigger the tile, the flatter the floor has to be, because a long rigid tile bridges any dip and rocks on the high points. Self-levelling compound, floor patch or additional underlayment goes down as needed.

Deflection matters as much as flatness. A springy floor over undersized or over-spanned joists will crack grout and eventually tile no matter how well it is set. Where we find it, we say so before tiling rather than after.

Uncoupling membranes go over substrates that are prone to movement, and in wet areas the waterproofing membrane goes on before any tile.

Layout and cuts

We dry-lay and snap lines before setting anything. The goal is to put full tiles where the eye lands and push cuts to the edges — and to avoid the classic error of starting from one wall and ending with a one-inch sliver at the other.

Herringbone, stacked, running bond at a third rather than a half offset for long planks, book-matched stone, mosaic inlays and border details all need their geometry resolved on paper and on the floor before the trowel comes out.

Setting materials, grout and movement

Mortar is matched to the tile and the substrate — large-format tile needs a medium-bed mortar and proper back-buttering to achieve full coverage, and coverage is what stops a tile sounding hollow and cracking later. Natural stone needs white mortar so the colour does not telegraph through.

Grout choice is a durability decision as much as an aesthetic one. Movement joints get placed at changes of plane, at perimeters and at intervals across large fields — filled with flexible sealant rather than grout, because grout in a movement joint simply cracks.

Heated floors and natural stone

Electric radiant mats under tile are one of the most appreciated upgrades in a bathroom, and the right moment to install them is during a floor replacement. The mat is tested before, during and after the pour so a damaged element is found while it can still be fixed.

Marble, travertine, slate and other natural stones need sealing before grouting so the grout does not stain the face of the stone, and periodic resealing afterwards. We will tell you what maintenance a stone actually needs before you choose it.

Choosing tile for the room it is going in

Not all tile suits all locations. Porcelain is denser and less absorbent than ceramic, which makes it the safer choice for floors, wet areas and anywhere near an exterior door. Ceramic is perfectly good on walls and costs less. Natural stone is beautiful and needs ongoing maintenance that some households want and others resent being handed.

Floor tile carries a hardness rating for wear, and a slip-resistance figure that matters enormously in a bathroom or an entry. A polished stone that looks superb in a showroom can be genuinely dangerous wet. We will raise that before it is ordered rather than after it is down.

Tile also has to suit the substrate and the traffic. A large-format porcelain plank on a lightly framed second-floor bathroom is a different engineering problem from the same tile on a slab, and pretending otherwise is how cracked grout happens.

Common tile failures and what caused them

Hollow-sounding tiles mean poor mortar coverage — usually the tile was pressed onto ridged mortar without being back-buttered or beaten in. Those tiles crack under load eventually.

Grout that cracks in a straight line along the same joint every time is nearly always movement, not bad grout. Tiles lifting at a doorway threshold usually means no movement joint was left at the change of plane. Discoloured grout in a shower floor frequently means water is sitting under the tile because the pan was never pre-sloped.

We look for these when quoting a repair, because replacing tile without correcting the cause simply buys a year.