Laying tiles on the floor with your own hands

The tile floor is not only beautiful, but also durable, easy to clean and maintain. For laying ceramic tiles on the floor, the performer has enough to possess a small amount of assiduity, accuracy, artistic taste, and also the ability to do something on their own without the involvement of specialized specialists.

Before laying the tiles on the floor with their own hands, you need to acquire the necessary set of materials and tools without which this process will be difficult or impossible.

Materials

• First of all, you need to choose the floor tile itself, guided by the general design of the room. Depending on where the floor is located under the tile laying, the material is chosen with a glossy or matt surface. For safety, it is worth taking a tile with a non-slip surface.
• When buying a tile for laying on the floor, you need to take into account that its actual consumption will exceed the area of ​​the premises by 5-10%, since some of the material will be spent on cutting and fighting. You should carefully review all the packages, sorting out the possible deviations in size and shades.
• You will need to purchase a tile adhesive, based on the flow rate indicated on its packaging. The contractor must be prepared for the fact that the actual consumption of the glue, depending on the surface of the rough floor, may be different from the declared one.
• To prepare the surface for laying tiles on the floor, according to the technology, you need to purchase a deep penetration primer.
• To grout joints will need a special mixture. You can choose a variety of colors, focusing on your vision of the overall design of the floor.
• All building mixtures are desirable to buy from one manufacturer - this will ensure their correct interaction with each other.

Tools

For laying tiles on the floor you need a minimum set of tools and devices that ensure successful work.

• It is desirable to purchase a set of plastic crosses of the right size, a small trowel, plastic utensils for preparation of a glutinous solution, a metal spatula with prongs.
• To prepare the adhesive solution, you need a powerful drill with a mixer.
• In addition, you need: a rubber spatula, a rubber hammer, pliers, tile cutters( depending on the area of ​​laying the tile coating, it can be the simplest design or as a full-fledged machine with electric drive for cutting tiles).
• For measuring and marking on tiles, you will need: tape measure, construction level, pencil, gon.
• To protect the hands and feet of the performer, it is advisable to purchase knee pads, gloves.
• For a clean floor cleaning it is necessary to stock up with a sponge and a rag.

Step-by-step instruction for laying tiles

1. When starting the process of laying floor tiles, it is necessary, first of all, to prepare a working surface. To do this, you need to check the level of roughness of the floor covering, if necessary, clean it from roughness, vacuum it, removing dust and debris from the surface. The floor needs to be rinsed well to remove possible grease stains. In order to ensure the reliability of gluing the tiles, the surface must be treated with a deep penetration primer.

2. Before laying the tile on the floor, it is necessary to perform the marking of the surface in such a way that the minimum amount of scrapings appears on the surface and the new coating lies symmetrically with the room. For this, it is advisable to look at photos, videos on the site, demonstrating the nuances of the process. Experts recommend starting marking from the entrance to the room. Initially, the first row is stacked dry to determine the correct breakdown.

3. Mixing the adhesive( using a mixer or manually) requires strict adherence to the manufacturer's recommendations for the amount of water added and the preparation technology indicated on the package. Experienced experts advise to prepare at a time a small amount of solution, focusing on the speed of laying tiles.

4. Prepare the adhesive solution, you can start laying the glue on the floor surface with a trowel. Further, the glue is evenly distributed, thanks to the use of a notched trowel-comb. If the tiles are large( the sides are more than 30 cm), the glue should be applied to the tile itself.

5. The first tile should be laid, strictly focusing on the marking lines placed on the floor, after which, it needs to be aligned horizontally, using a rubber hammer and level. When stacking the next tiles in a row, it is advisable to use crosses to maintain the width of the seams between them.

6. The first row is ready. Next, you need to continue laying the subsequent rows of the whole tile, laying the right amount of mortar on the floor. The correctness of the horizontal position is controlled by means of a level.

7. Laying out whole tiles, you can start filling the areas that require trimming. For this, it will be necessary to mark out the necessary pieces of necessary dimensions with a pencil on the tile, taking into account the seam and a small gap to the wall. Marked tiles are placed in the tile cutter to cut the required pieces. If you want to make a curved cut, you need to draw the appropriate line on the tile and scratch the surface with a glass cutter or core. Most of the tiles can be cut using a tile cutter or angle grinder, and finally give the required curvature - with pliers. For more information, see an article on how to cut a tile.

8. Laying out the entire surface of the floor, you can proceed to laying the skirting board of ceramic tiles. To do this, you will first need to cut the heightwise strips from the tiles or buy ready-made elements of the ceramic plinth. On the baseboard is applied glue, after which, it is laid on the wall with an orientation to the floor tiles.

9. After waiting for the adhesive to harden, you need to perform work on grouting the joints. For this, it is necessary to prepare the trowelling mixture and apply it to the seams, carefully filling them to the full depth. Excess mixture after 10-15 minutes will need to be cleaned with a sponge. After at least an hour, use a damp cloth to wipe the entire coating and, if necessary, even rinse it with tile detergents to remove the white coating.

Layed alone, the tile coating will be beautiful, durable, reliable in operation, easy to clean. An impressive number of proposed options for tiling will allow you to create your exclusive floor.

Video laying tiles on the floor with their own hands