Floor tiling in Wilnecote, Tamworth. Kitchen, hallway and bathroom floors laid level, with the subfloor prepared and the tiles set out to the room.
Usually 24 hours, and a little longer before heavy furniture goes back.
Not usually. We tile up to and under the kick boards, which is normal and keeps the cost down.
For floors, generally yes - it is denser and harder wearing. Ceramic is fine on walls and in lighter-traffic rooms.
Sometimes, if it is sound and the extra height works at the doors. Worth checking before you assume either way.
Taken back to a sound surface. Leaving ridges of old adhesive is how you get a floor that never sits flat.
Wilnecote, Two Gates, Dosthill, Glascote and the rest of Tamworth.
Checked and latexed where it needs it, because a floor out of level shows in every joint.
Overlay or membrane so movement underneath does not crack the tiles above.
Back-buttered and combed so there are no voids under a tile waiting to break.
Cuts planned against the units and the door, not left to fall where they land.
A proper trim or bar where the tile meets carpet, wood or the next room.
Laid over it correctly with the right adhesive, and left to commission slowly rather than turned straight on.
A tiled floor is only as good as what it is laid on, and Wilnecote houses give you both ends of the range: post-war semis with concrete slabs that are rarely flat, and newer builds with chipboard that flexes the moment you put weight on it.
Concrete gets checked for level and latexed where it dips. It is not glamorous work but a floor that is two centimetres out across a kitchen will show in every grout line, and large format tiles are unforgiving about it. Timber gets an overlay or a decoupling membrane so the boards can move without taking the tiles with them.
Then there is layout. Which way the tiles run, where the first full tile sits, and where the cuts land against the units and the door threshold - get that wrong and you end up with a sliver of tile against the most visible wall in the room.
Large format porcelain has become the standard choice, and it wants a full bed of adhesive under it rather than five dabs. Solid support is what stops a tile cracking down the middle when a fridge goes back in. Tiles that sound hollow when tapped, grout that keeps cracking in the same line, or a floor that flexes underfoot are worth looking at before they are tiled over.
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