Tile Installation

Tile is unforgiving. Layout that is a few millimetres out at one wall is obvious by the time it reaches the other, and a bathroom floor tiled over a surface that flexes will crack its grout lines within a season. Getting the substrate flat and solid comes before anything decorative.

In wet areas that also means waterproofing — backer board and a proper membrane behind and beneath the tile, so what is behind the wall stays dry. It is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the installation lasts.

For kitchen backsplashes the fussy part is the edges: outlets, window returns, the run under the cabinets, and the cut where the tile meets the counter. That is where a tidy job separates itself from an approximate one.

What this covers

• Bathroom floor and wall tile
• Kitchen backsplashes
• Shower and tub surrounds
• Backer board and waterproofing in wet areas
• Substrate preparation, layout and grouting