Just realised that I never came back with the final results.
Started laying the slabs. The advantage of brick bond is that each slab has three supports under each long edge. Although the tile suppliers tell me that they don’t need support, I still decided to put some dabs of tile adhesive down first.
The whole process is remarkably quick and easy. After about 45 minutes I’d got this far.
And after a couple of hours, this
It was helped a lot by the fact that my builder had done a superb job of laying the concrete slab nigh on perfectly flat with a slight slope for drainage.
The manufacturers sell a key to adjust the black pads. You don’t need it as I found it very easy to lay the tile and then nudge the pad round to raise it a smidgeon when needed. Round the perimeter I used tiling wedges. So just the cuts left to do the next day.
The next day dawned and I found that a few tiles rocked and sounded a bit hollow when tapped. I came to the conclusion that one can’t get the pads exactly right. You can adjust them for one tile but it won’t be quite right for the adjoining tile. We’re only talking 1mm or less but enough to break the bond with the dabs as one walked about laying the rest of the tiles.
The fix was sublimely easy as using that brilliant rough tile sucker from Rubi, you simply lift the tile up, put down a more liberal amount of adhesive, drop the tile back in place, step on it to bed it in nicely and job done. Cuts done and wait to dry before grouting.
Now, enquiries of the pad suppliers say that you don’t need to grout with these pads. Well, that’s being economical with the truth. The thing is that as it stands the grout simply falls out the bottom of the gap between the tiles since there is nothing underneath to stop it.
But a bit of lateral thinking on my part and I found this product from another company.
It’s a squidgy foam roll that you push down into the gap between tiles using the gizmo in the photo. Actually they do two…this one which costs about £6 and a more deluxe version at £99 or so. Looking at the one in the photo, you’d think ‘Ah, simple job..just push the foam in the groove and run that wee roller along to push the rest in.’. And you’d be wrong. The design is rubbish. The width of the wheel is OK for thinner foam but not for the 10mm that I was using. So it ends up slicing into the foam which doesn’t help. Wetting the gaps helped but it was still much more time consuming that it should have been …if only they’d designed the tool better.
And onto grouting. Now all the books say to use a grouting float. Yup..works well for small smooth tiles. Not large rough tiles like these. After a first attempt on a couple of tiles, I found that I was losing a huge amount of grout in the pores of the tiles and was looking at having to buy a whole load more grout. Simple solution…just use a spatula and press the grout into the grooves. Quicker and more economical.
So there we have it. The grout has hardened. The tiles are (and sound) rock solid. Zero movement.
Definitely recommend these pads.
I did make one mistake though. I thought it would be a good idea to put a protecting sealing coating on these tiles especially the grout. I’ve used DRAI before from an Italian company and it certainly does what it says on the tin. Only…these are porcelain tiles. They don’t need sealing. I also was running out of DRAI and so I only managed to do four rows and splash the remaining DRAI on the grout lines on the other four rows. As the DRAI dried and the setting sun came out, to my horror I saw a really blotchy finish on the tiles especially around the tiles to either side of the grout lines. It looked horrible. Contacting the manufacturer, all they could suggest was mechanical removal. One day, I’ll get the Jif out and see what I can do. It does work though. Look at this picture. Surface tension beats gravity. The four rows with DRAI have yet to drain but the tiles without the water simply ran off and are perfectly dry.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.