Flooring ‘N Tiles

Back to discussing tiles, today’s topic covers something that goes beyond tiles and into paving.

Brick paver tiles are a colorful and exciting cover for any driveway treatment. Placed on existing cement, they are grouted into place providing the same sort of sensibility as those brick veneers we see added to siding for the walls o houses and buildings everywhere. Durable, strong and colorful, brick paver tiles offer a fabulous look to the largest or even the smallest areas. They have a multitude of possible uses in a designer’s set of possibilities.

Many finished cement driveways may have these inset brick areas serving to break up the glaring color and the redundant monotony of large swaths of boring monolithic treatment. Breaking up the lines of a long and routine driveway can be a delightful use of brick paver tiles. As well, entire driveways of these warm, earth-toned tiles can produce an amazingly warm sense of welcome and of eye-pleasing complexity.

A variety of colors and styles of brick paver tiles are available, from the nearly “terracotta” simplicity of the clay-fired old fashioned Mediterranean stylings, to the adobe look so popular in the American Southwest, to the ultra modern new ceramics and hand painted and glazed brick tiles so easily adapted to paving, almost all things are possible in this marvelous application for a driveway, walkway or patio.

Sorry about the break here… time to get back to blogging, and I figured we should cover some basics today -

How to measure your room for tiling.

Sharing some thoughts about one of the most important tools of the trade. This isn’t any DIY stuff, really, but if you’re interested in flooring, you might find this a good read.

Professional floor sanders are among the most necessary tools in a flooring contractor’s arsenal. Belt driven and rotary sanders are used in combination as a rule, for the best possible sanding. The rotary sanders tend to be necessary for hard, out-of-the-way places like corners and edges, while the belt sanders are fabulous for the very major work of sanding the main areas of a floor.

Whether reconditioning an old floor is called for, or for a light tweaking and sanding of a brand new, freshly-installed wood floor, floor sanders are just an ideal tool for each. Naturally, the variety of grits available to a floor sanding machine determine the amount of consuming the surface a professional floor sander will undertake. Rough old floors require a grittier and more deeper penetrating grit for reconditioning. Eating away sometimes decades of wood surfaces can take place, removing thus all signs of aging and of pockmarked and etched surfaces. The result when reconditioned, can be amazingly attractive. It always amazed me how fresh an ancient floor can look after a through and proper sanding.

New floors can also require some sanding, but with a much finer grit rating and typically to roughen the floor enough to accept the urethane or varnish applications which will eventually protect and make the floor shine like new.

These can be very powerful machines which require the utmost care in use. Indeed, the deeper the grit, the more you have to watch how long you dally in one spot. It is entirely possible to overdo the sanding and thus create a gouged area. Amazingly, the rougher sandpapers can simply eat up the surface of a floor. Be careful with these remarkable machines however, and you will be totally delighted with the result. There are few machines indeed that can deliver so well on your intended result. Floor sanders are simply dream come true for almost anyone dealing with wood floors.

While on the topic of laminate flooring, I figured a quick DIY tip is a good topic for one more blog post!

Repairing laminate flooring is reasonable simple in the end and follows some sensible methodology.  However, unfortunately, inasmuch as laminate flooring clicks into place like a jig saw and receives its strength from just that interlocking nature, it may require a substantial amount of removal and replacement to really fix things.  For example, the most common and most recommendable manner of fixing it involved removing all the interlocked laminate flooring pieces which extend inwards from the outer edge.  Thus, it is a process of removing all strips leading to the affected area.

Thus, simple as it may seem in principle, it can be one big pain to fix them, owing to the sheer volume of what needs to be undone just to get to the area desiring a replacement board or two.  Nevertheless, since they are a simple fix, from the standpoint of complexity, it is pretty easy to do.

Start at the closest edge by a wall and remove the molding.  Make sure you don’t break the moulding either, lol.  Careful!

From this point, it is your standard average simple matter of separating the boards which interlock until you take out enough to arrive at your desired fixable area. Hopefully, you will have the correct-colored and sized boards in your hot hand to replace the damaged one.  From here, we just rebuild, going once again, wall-wards.  When finished, tack the molding back in place and you have your newer, better floor!

Removing floor tiles can be in sticky process. In the end, much depends on whether or not you want to preserve the tiles for some future project or not. When the goal is to save as many tiles as possible, it then becomes a tad thornier. Most floor tiles are adhered to their sub floor with some of the strongest products made. Separating tiles from the sub floor is therefore a project requiring the right tools and some patient work. In the end, strength can also be a huge help.

Some tiles, of course, are adhered by virtue of cement. This can be easier or harder than a typical floor mastic, but, once again, I can assure you, it is more of the above. Among the tools you need is a pry bar, a hammer and chisel (preferably a “cold chisel”, suitable for stone work), a small strong screwdriver and perhaps a rotary tool, good for cutting and certainly helpful in the removal of the grout along the sides of all the tiles.

First, let’s get rid of the grout between the tiles. While these areas are not the bulk of its adherence qualities, they certainly are an aid to keeping tiles in place. Removing these will certainly help. Not removing them will certainly hurt, in other words…

As a test, try and insert something underneath a tile, preferably a screwdriver whose flat edge can get below the tile and work its way further underneath. It might be worth the attempt to try and lightly hammer the tool under. It may just be that one might have to literally break a tile to get underway. Sacrificing a tile will give the ability to stick a wider chisel underneath and provide more surface area for prying. Once this is done, continual working of the tool under the tile should get on to the point at which the tile can be lifted out. Unfortunately, this will require repeating until the effect is achieved completely.

Removing floor tile is hard work. This may one one of those projects for a professional owing to the flying debris and general brutal strength required to pull it off.

A question I often get asked, is how to do mosaic tiling? As a relatively time-consuming, labor intensive project, installing mosaic tiles does have a few definite short cuts to completion. As a professional, a contractor does not have the luxury of a “near-perfect” result. His mosaic constructions need to be professionally and artistically perfect. Thus, most professionals opt for the ‘paper’ or ‘mesh’ processes which involve the actual configuration of the tiles to be constructed on a separate surface. (Incidentally, this part of the process is pretty much a given for any installer, professional or otherwise).

Thus arranged in the manner they will appear on the floor or wall, a “mesh” or “paper” is glued to the tops of the tiles to hold them in place. We try and make sure we work with a small enough sample so that the transference will keep the entire integrity of the design in place and unmoved. We then set this “batch” of mosaics onto a thin set applied to the sub surface. By adjusting appropriately, the tiles are set into place and the paper or mesh is extracted. Pressing the tiles into a firmer position adhering to the thin set can be done in any number of ways but preferably with a straight and flat board which should eliminate problems resulting from uneven thicknesses of the mosaics.

Once adhered, the last part is the grouting which follows almost all grout rules: spread evenly and clean thoroughly. Make sure when cleaning to dump and clean the sponge used for cleaning often. With some irregularities on the surface which are pretty routine in ceramic and glass tiles, grout can stick to them. Also, some careful consideration is always necessary in choosing the color of the grouting itself. Inasmuch as many colors and tones are available, there is bound to be a satisfying combination to opt for.

The function of underlayment is to absorb some of the imperfections in the sub-floor; to help deaden sound when walking on the floor (since it is not attached to the sub-floor); and to soften the feel when walking on the floor. It is very important to understand that underlayment for laminate and floating wood floors is not the same as padding for carpet. In terms of sound suppression, it can reduce overhead sound in rooms below the flooring in addition to lessening the affects of sub-floor imperfections. The sound reducing quality is important in multi story houses and, for, say, apartment complexes.

Flooring underlay boards come in a wide variety of compositions any more. Many resin or “composition-type” constructions come in lengths resembling boards per se. They have a number of great properties including engineered differences in sound suppression, heat retention and over all durability. Typically flooring underlay boards “float”, or that is to say they are not nailed onto or adhered in any way to the sub flooring at its base. As underlayment such as this can be used for any number of reasons, including levelling and smoothing out an otherwise strong but uneven sub floor. Generally, underlayments are specifically used to reduce sound, provide a softer feel for the feet and to protect the initial sub flooring.

Flooring underlay boards can also come in cork products for seriously softening the footprint of traffic and still provide the noise-reducing qualities one is generally looking for with this product. As an additional form of insulation, cork flooring underlay boards are a great utility and as easy to install as can be imagined for this light yet durable material. Once again, the virtues of cork in flooring is a wonderful alternative.