Gapless Tile

Hardly Working

I have a customer that wants their Maple floors taken up and tile put down in the kitchen. When I say tile it'll be stone, but they want no gaps in the tiles for food and other things to get into. What are the methods to do this is it an Epoxy or what. I need to sub this out but I need to know what I'm getting into and what needs to be done right.

Mike Costello

The solution to a gapless job would be grout. Fill the gaps with grout and the food will bounce right off!

Mike Costello

Ok the last post was tongue in cheek.

It would be difficult to tell you what your contractor should do to make it right. We need a little more info like what type of stone, I assume its a wood floor underneath?

Do you mean epoxy grout?
Will you be using cement board as underlayment?

By laying the stone up against each other with no grout leaves more opportunity for gaps to form.

Glasshousebltr

You need some gap to take up inconsistencies in the stone factory cut. I'd talk them into a 1/16th gap and a sand less grout with additive (holds up better)

Bob

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Bob

Floorwizard

I agree.

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"in 20 years you will regret more what you did not do than what you did"

R&D Tile

Also agree, you need a joint, do not butt tile or stone, 1/32 to 1/16" for stone, if you grout butted tile, it will just flake out of the joint on top and then all the dirt and critters will have a nice home.

Hardly Working

The material is to be slate but as I said they'd like it gapless. I think 1/16 agp with an epoxy grout would work. Again to the PRO's out there is this the right way to go? If I'm paying a guy to lay this I want it done the right way and my way. The first time. So is an epoxy a good way to go? Oh yeh The sub floor is T&G plywood and new underlayment is in order. I'll be honest I'm not a tile guy but I can do it. This is one job though I'll sub out to a pro.

Mike Finley

I don't see why epoxy grout is required, but if you want it why not. There should be an upcharge for it.

Pearce Services

Any "butt-joint" installations I've ever seen were all "Mud-jobs". this allows you to control the thickness of the tile, and eliminate any uneveness in the floor.

If your floor is not perfectly flat on the same plane, you will see the corners of the tiles.

Epoxy grout on an unglazed slate can be difficult, expect to pay more for this,and maybe even expect to pay for the tiles to be sealed prior to grouting.

I think standard grout, then seal the whole floor after the grouting is the best method.

This is a $20/SF labor job, minimum.

I would buy a case of tiles, and lay them butt-joint on a piece of plywood, and show them the way the tiles will butt each other, if the slate is uneven, as it will most likely be, you should scare them away from this option.

Bud Cline

Hardly Working,

A person could write several chapters on the subject you have submitted and there are many considerations. Here's a crash-course.

Slate tile these days comes in basically three forms. Ungauged, gauged, faux.

Let's start with faux, this would in my opinion be the wisest choice for every one. By "faux" I am referring to the many porcelain tiles that are made to mimmic all stones available today, not the least of which is slate. A porcelain mimmic would be consistant in size all around and would eliminate a lot of problems.

Next and usually the cheapest is "ungauged" slate. This is slate tile, real slate tile, that varies considerably in both thickness and sizing. It would be impossible to "click" ungauged slate tiles while at the same time maintaining a suitable straight layout. It just can't happen because the tiles will vary so much in size. The thickness variance may also be a problem and could cause "trippers" and an unsightly installation. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.

Now, there is also "gauged" slate which will be more consistent in thickness size and the overall dimensions would be more agreeable with one-another. In fact, a guy may also find gauged slate that has been precisely sawn. This means particular attention has been paid to the sizing of the tiles. All tiles (clay and stone) allow for some variances in their sizing and all tiles usually aren't exactly the same size. Stone tiles come closer than most because they are sawn but it seems that less attention is paid to the sizing of slate than any of the others. In ceramic these particular tiles are called "rectified".

I personally don't think it's a good idea to click any tile and this is usually the recommendation of most experienced tileguys.

It is true that to use ungauged slate and expect a consistancy in the surface the tiles would have to be mudset but unless your installer is experienced at this I wouldn't go down that path.

Now, the epoxy. Epoxy grout is a different animal from regular cement grout and can be a terrible pain to work with. Some epoxy grouts can ruin a natural stones finish and in the case of slate which has the most irregular surface (generaly) of all stones I wouldn't even consider it.

Slate (most all stones) MUST BE SEALED prior to grouting or you will never get the resulting haze off of the stone. Even after being sealed two or three times slate can still be very difficult to clean. Epoxy with its smearing and sticky tendancies could be super difficult to clean to an acceptable degree. I'm sure that somewhere out there there are any number of people that would disagree but I don't know any of them.

Before I attempted a job like this I would first sit down with the customer with samples in-hand and physically demonstrate the variables and the what-ifs. CYA.

Teetorbilt

I was on a job a few years ago (marble floor) with 0 grout lines, they couldn't find anyone here who knew how to deal with it and flew an entire crew from Italy to do the job. I wish that I had paid more attention.

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Hardly Working

Well thanks for the schooling guys. Best bet is to lay the tiles out and let them see for them self. Teeter you should have paid more attention your Italian would be much better, and you could get the big bucks for these kind of pain in the butt jobs.