"floating" Floor

angus242

I'm laying porcelain directly over cement slab in a herringbone pattern. I've dropped over 200 sq ft so far and no issues. I'm finishing up in a tight space with a small hallway, pantry, powder room and hall closet. I had all the tiles pre-fit because of how many cuts I had to do with the pattern and all the door jambs. Last night around 10:00pm, my trowel broke. Handle snapped right off. Cheap spot welded handle ...so I had to stop while in the pantry and wait until morning to get another trowel. So today, I'm moving right along when I was dropping the last tile in to connect the left pattern to the right and ooopppsss....my gap was 1/16" off??? The pattern was laid out with my trusty laser and my lines have been dead on for over 20 lin. ft. My question is, can tile move on it's own while the thinset dries? The slab is flat cause again, I used my laser to see how far the whole thing was off. Small section was about 1/4" high but that was under some cabinets and on the other side of the room. The section of tile that moved is in the pantry under shelving so there's 0% chance someone stepped on it. Oh, the tile is 6x24 rectified and I'm laying it without grout lines which is why the 1/16" screwed me up. I had to trim 1/16" off each tile for the rest of that row (until I got to adjacent wall) so my west-east gap was off....north-south stayed fine. Before I stopped tiling last night, I used scrap tile as "spacers" to make sure I was still aligned. The fact that entire row was off tells me it was more than just 1 bad placement on my part.
Who knows, maybe I did screw up but I can't figure out how I would have. Now if some of you say flat tile can't "move" on it's own, well then I'm an idiot

pic in case I'm not making sense

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Floordude

Yes, tiles can move all on there own, especially on a soupy thinset mix, and no other tile to support it, so to speak. Had it happen to me. Now I set a tile, small stack of scraps, or a piece of lumber, where I leave off for the day

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Bud Cline

"Can" and do.

Bill_Vincent

Tile gremlins.

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angus242

tile gremlins

why did they have to show up when I'm not using grout

Bill_Vincent

Maybe they're tryin to save you from yourself!!

NOT using grout????

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angus242

Bill,

Why do you say that?

Bill_Vincent

Hey Angus-- If that's ceramic, then it needs to be grouted, even if you have small joints and use unsanded grout-- the grout does several things for you. First, it allows you to take into account the imperfections in the tile. Secondly, it fills in any empty edges and corners that may exist under the tiles, and thirdly it fills in even the most minute of gaps so they don't fill up with "something else". Grout is necessary. I know there's a movement to eliminate grout and set tile, especially polished stone and rectifed porcelain tight. But it's wrong, and shouldn't be done.

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angus242

Bill,

Well I guess I'm wrong. Floor is almost done and I set it without grout joints. HOWEVER, when I would set a tile, I would "smear and clear". I used my finger to fill in any thinset voids around the edges of each tile so that should help. And as you know, there was NO WAY I was able to get 100% groutless joints so I do have a small thing of TEC AccuColor unsanded matched to tile color to fill any left over gaps so "stuff" stays out! I can say that the biggest gaps are very small...under 1/32 and there aren't many of them. My biggest challenge was lippage. The rectified tiles were pretty consistent so to keep them jointless, wasn't bad. The problem for me was the tile thickness. Some were concaved, some convexed. I spent WAY TOO MUCH time keeping everything level.
I learned my lesson all the way around. I won't do a floor like this again....simply because how hard it was to lay. I love how it looks but it was the first and last for me.

Thanks for the info!

Bill_Vincent

I don't blame you. Thos imitation hardwood floors are great when they're done right. But in order to do them right, that floor has to be just about perfectly flat, before the first piece of tile goes down. Otherwise you've got a nightmare on your hands!! Looks good in the picture, anyway!!

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Teetorbilt

I've done one job and it came out fine, I wasn't personally setting the tile and the guys doing it never complained. I need to ask some questions.

The job came out great and no complaints so far, almost 2 yrs. on that job.

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