Floor Tiles - Kitchen

olgadapolga

Does anyone have any advice about whether to fit kitchen floor tiles before or after the kitchen units have been installed? I can see the reasoning behind both but I disagree with DH's  preference. It's not going to cause a major row buy just wondered what others thought 🙂

Martin_the_Unjust

Depends on the existing floor, type of tiles and type of kitchen units

grumbler

My personal opinion - before and only before. However, I think, many if not most kitchen fitters will disagree. This is judging by how many kitchens are tiled around the cabinets.

pramsay13

After.
It is better to install the kitchen units to the main kitchen floor.
If the units are installed on top of floor tiles, and you want to change the flooring before you want to change the units this could get tricky.

Emmia

Before, the floor will be protected to an extent from leaks, and you won't have to manoeuvre any appliances you want to replace / repair over a "flooring lip".

phoebe1989seb

Definitely before......

scottishblondie

After. As noted above it makes it easier to change the floor coverings. Run it right up to the legs of the units and into the spaces for any appliances. 

olgadapolga

Thank you all for taking the trouble to reply. 

We have concrete floors, so we were thinking of plain floor tiles (450mm square, maybe). The kitchen units will go around three sides of the kitchen.

I'd prefer to tile the complete floor and then install the units but when we asked a tiler about it, he said it's better to tile after fitting the units. Not sure if that was about making it easier for him or whether he thought that we'd be able to use the kitchen earlier in the process. DH was swayed by his opinion so it's caused a bit of discussion (although when we moved in, DH was really annoyed with the tiles not being flush as that made it awkward to manoeuvre the washing machine and dishwasher into place as there's a ridge there). With regards to the cost of the tiles, it would probably be another 5 square metres if we tile before fitting the units.

We won't be replacing the flooring again as we'd probably move before that happened!

George_Michael

My opinion would definitely be to tile before fitting the appliances.
Apart from having a lip that you may have to lift a heavy appliance over should you need to pull it out, what would happen if you needed to replace one of the appliances in the future and the new one is slightly bigger or smaller that the one it is replacing? You might then have a small gap between it and the tiles or if it's a little bit bigger, the front may have to go over the tiles causing it to tilt slightly.

Martin_the_Unjust

I would go with the view of the expert, which in this case is the tiler.


But if you’d prefer to take the advice of complete strangers on the internet instead..............

olgadapolga

Martin_the_Unjust said:

But if you’d prefer to take the advice of complete strangers on the internet instead..............

At no point did I say that I wasn't going to take the tiler's advice. I just said that it had caused a bit of discussion at home.

I generally like to research all of the options before making a decision, so I wouldn't necessarily base a decision on what one single "expert" has told me. I have no knowledge as to the "expert's" qualifications other than a recommendation from another tradesperson. For all I know, he could have his own reasons for his suggestions which are nothing to do with the actual job he was asked about.

My reason for asking here is that there are some very knowledgeable posters on this forum. A lot of information on the internet based upon opinion, anyway, some on experience and some on fact. It's a case of sorting out the wheat from the chaff, which is what I'm attempting to do.