Hey all,

I am about to start tiling my bathroom. Have a couple ?'s

I'm using travertine 4x4's and 6x6's. Should I notch the thinset or smooth?

What spacing is ideal for the grout lines with this tile?

Start from bottom to top? in sections?

This tile will be for a shower tub combo. If I start with a row of tiles at the bottom, do I need to do that row of tiles on all 3 walls at the same time and work up from there?

What kind of sealer is recommended for travertine inside wet areas?



Thanks for the help!

 

Last year I built a large handicapped accessible bathroom for my father who is 89. I hired someone to do the tile & I'm glad I did. There were too many tricks of the trade that I didn't know & never would have known, even if I asked here.

One of them was on the spacing. The tile guy had a coffee can full of spacers that he used to hold the tiles from slipping. Your question about spacing tells me that you don't have those spacers nor did you know that they existed. Little things like that make the job so much easier.

If you still want to do the job yourself, look at some videos on youtube.

 

I agree with Pulpo on the videos. It will help you a lot. Have you planned your pattern for the 4x4 and 6x6 tiles. How will your running bond work? Spacing is all important. If it varies, the job will not look good. Travertine usually has a very thin grout line. Not sure if travertine would be the best choice in a shower or not. Tiling books available at most home centers will give you valuable information.
It would be difficult, if not impossible for us to give you a play by play on tile installation. Tricks of the trade make it happen.

 

yes I have the pattern already figured out with minimal cutting involved. I have some tile experience and was just looking for specific tips that would apply to my application. I will check out the videos mentioned. Thanks for the help.

 

UPDATE. Here is what I have so far. Need to grout and seal. I installed the trim to see how the colors would blend. Thanks for all the help!

[IMG] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

 

Looks great - thanks for the update

 

anytime u have stone, its alot easier if u apply stone sealer with a sponge, let sit 30 so minutes, wipe off. i do it twice. it acts like a grout release. cant see from pics, but i always tile the ceiling on a diagonal as well. If its your place, grout the corners. if the house has settled, it will hold, if it cracks in a year, big deal then caulk it. by grouting corners, less maintenance then with caulking.

 

Thanks..
Yes, its my place and it was built in the 60's so the house is def settled by now.

What do you like to use for sealer? I'm looking for one that will just seal and not really change the color at all.

 

http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/...p/t-34788.html.

they did a survey on this site.

I use Tile Lab-green bottle. if u havent already grouted, i use it as a grout release. u only need the little bottle. wont change the color. test an unused piece if u need to.
home depot stuff. I like TECspecility.com stuff too, but depending where you are in order to get it. when u apply it as a release dont go crazy and let it run wildly into grout joints, a once wrung big grout sponge is all u need at a time. cant really tell by the picture, but did u paint the ceiling to match the texture of the stone? If u did, looks great, nice job on the tile. Now your ready to build a nice European shower in your basement. haha

 

Gregnese:

Judging from the picture, either you used a dark grout or you haven't grouted yet.

If you haven't grouted, there are some things you should know:

1. Grout is thixotropic, which means it thins out when you work it. So, after mixing the grout, the instructions will probablyl tell you to let it "slake" for 5 to 10 minutes before mixing again. That just means just let it sit for that time before re-mixing. During that time the grout will get stiff. Avoid the temptation to add water to it. If you just mix it agressively, it'll revert to the same consistancy it was when you first mixed it.

2. Don't mix up more than about 2 cups of grout at a time. Otherwise it'll be stiffening up on you and you'll have a progressively harder and harder time packing it into the grout lines.

3. Use masking tape to mask off the tile-to-tub joint. You want to caulk that joint rather than grout it. Any grout in that joint will crack from the movement of the tub when you step into and out of it and fill it with water.

4. Always, always, always grout with a white nylon Scotchbrite pad (of the kind sold in grocery stores for scrubbing delicate items) handy. That way, if your grout stiffens up on you cuz you took too long grouting, and you're having a hard time getting the excess grout off the wall with a damp sponge, you can take it off real fast using a white Scotchbrite pad. If it's glazed wall tile, then the abrasives impregnated into the fibers of the green pads aren't hard enough to scratch glass, so you can use those on glazed wall tiles if that's all you have available.

5. Finally, it's always easier to wipe down the grout lines to a uniform depth if you start with them at a uniform depth. So, after grouting but before wiping down the grout lines with a sponge, scrape the grout lines with a popsicle stick, tongue depressor, a plastic teaspoon, or any other tool that will scrape the grout down to a uniform and proper depth. Then, the time you use wiping the grout lines down with a sponge will be minimal, and the tiling will look better because of the uniformity of the grout lines. (Careful not to gouge the grout where grout lines intersect.)

SEALERS:

There's two kinds of grout sealers, penetrating and film forming.

Penetrating:

Penetrating sealers work by being absorbed into the grout and occupying the places where the capillary pressure is highest, and hardening up there. In so doing, penetrating sealers lower the capillary pressure of the grout so it's ability to wick water in is reduced. Imagine you fill an aquarium with marbles. If you filled that aquarium with water, and then allowed the water to drain out, then there would still be droplets of water at the points where any two marbles touched. So some water would remain behind in that aquarium. Now, if you could fill the aquarium with liquid plastic, and then allow that liquid plastic to drain out, some plastic would remain behind at each of those same spots. Now, allow that remaining plastic to harden up. From now on, each time you fill that aquarium with water, ALL of the water will drain out. That's because the plastic now occupies all the sites where the capillary pressure is high enough to retain a liquid. That bed of marbles stuck together with liquid plastic has virtually no capillary pressure and won't absorb water the way dry marbles will.

The above is how penetrating grout sealers prevent grout from wicking in water, and that keeps grout dry and free of mildew. The BEST grout sealer you can use is a penetrating sealer because the grout protects it from erosion by the shower spray, and so penetrating sealers SHOULD last much longer than film forming sealers.

My experience with penetrating sealers has not been a good one. I had conflicting information on how to tell whether the grout was properly sealed or not, and since I had to retile the tub walls in 22 bathrooms, I wasn't in the mood for guesswork. I decided to go with an acrylic film forming grout sealer which I could both SEE was in place and had confidence in maintaining.

In my case I tried using one of the first penetrating sealers on the market, a product called Silox 8 made by the Ceramaseal company, which was a subsidiary of the Bostick Company, and is no longer in business.

However, if you're interested in a penetrating sealer, I would point you in the direction of the StoneTech line of grout and masonary sealers being made by the DuPont company. I've never used any of their products, but DuPont at least has the chemists and technical expertise to make a product that works well. I expect most of the companies selling grout sealers don't have any chemists, or if they do, are relegated to the quality control department, not product development.

DuPont? StoneTech® Professional

Film forming:

Film forming sealers act just like a raincoat... they form an impermeable film over the grout. Film forming sealers come in two flavours; acrylic and silicone based.

Never ever never use a silicone based film forming grout sealer. Look on the bottle to see if you can find the word "siloxane" anywhere. Since silicon has a valence of 4 electrons, just like carbon, scientists tried making the same plastics out of silicon that they had previously made using carbon (from petroleum). Siloxane is a suffix indicating that the plastic is silicon based. But, just like silicone caulk and other silicon based plastics, the problem is that nothing sticks well to them, not even that same silicon based plastic. So, you can put a silicon based film forming sealer on your grout lines, but you can't add another coat or two a few years down the road to restore the protection. That's because the new silicon grout sealer won't stick well to the old silicone based grout sealer. It's like trying to get new silicone bathtub caulk to stick to old silicone bathtub caulk; it just won't happen.

In my 22 bathrooms I use an acrylic (meaning it's made of the same kind of plastic that Plexiglas is) film forming grout sealer. Acrylic latex paints, floor finishes and grout sealers are all made of a plastic called polymethyl methacrylate, and it doesn't have the adhesion problems as silicon based grout sealers do. New acrylic grout sealer will stick to old acrylic grout sealer as well as the old acrylic sealer sticks to the grout, so you can add protection every half dozen years or so.

I find that the plastic is hard and durable enough that I find that I can keep 22 bathrooms mildew free by periodically cleaning the tiling and adding a coat or two of grout sealer when suites are empty between tenants. For a residence with only 2 or 3 bathrooms, preventing mildew by maintaining the acrylic film forming sealer on the grout would not be any problem at all. With the grout sealer I use, I'm typically getting 7 to 10 years out of 3 coats (applied one after the other) in apartments, and I can assure you that my tenants DO NOT towel dry the bathroom walls after showering.

The two acrylic film forming sealers that I would recommend are:

"Grout Sealer" from the Glaze 'N Seal company of California:
Maintain The Glossy Appearance of Decorative Concrete with Concrete Sealer
http://www.glaze-n-seal.com/docs/fac...ler%20FS41.pdf

or:

"Gloss Sealer and Finish" or "Matte Sealer and Finish" both from TileLab and available at Home Depot.

The only reason I'd recommend these two is because Tile Lab also makes a cleaner for these sealers called "Heavy Duty Cleaner and Stripper" that makes easy work of removing the sealer (in order to remove any stains or discolouration). With the Glaze 'N Seal product, you pretty well need to use acetone to remove the sealer, but the TileLab cleaner is truly very effective at removing the TileLab sealer with very little elbow grease.

http://www.custombuildingproducts.co...er=arc&lang=es

http://www.custombuildingproducts.co...er=pro&lang=en

I have no doubt that the Glaze 'N Seal product would outlast the TileLab sealer, but the TileLab sealer is a good choice only because it can easily be removed from the grout. That way, if you find out a few years from now about a reliable penetrating sealer or an excellent acrylic film forming sealer, you can switch without a lot of work removing the old sealer.