to grout or not to grout? square edge tiles.

smartiepants

We have 40 x 40cm square edged shiny floor tiles to lay, and we are not sure if you should use spacers and grout, or just butt up the tiles leaving no gap.

Any experience on these tiles would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Mr_Proctalgia

If you just butt them up they will crack in no time at all. All houses move a little with temperature changes and the weather will move the footings too. The grout is to allow this microscopic movement and thus protect the tiles.

Also how will you clean them properly, crud and gunge will work its way between them and if you spill anything it will get below them and possible start to lift them.

smartiepants

Mr Proctalgia, thankyou so much for this information, it has made our minds up to heed your advice and use spacers and apply grout in the traditional way, as we have massive temperature differences here in France between the winter and summer, combined with a very old 600 year house, it makes sense.

Thanks again, your reply is very much appreciated.

Mr_Proctalgia

There is more than one way to do this job - lay out your tiles and just look at them for a while. Alter the grouting gap, try them offset (brick wall style), try them at 45%. They can look totally different with contrasting grout, or use a stick and recess the grout a little. The possiblities are endless. Just have a good play around with them before the tile adhesive comes out.

Glad to be of help BTW

plumb1_2

Use 3mm spacers

Paul_H_4

As mentioned by Mr Proctalgia, get your tiles and try different patterns ie brick, staggered and diagonal before applying adhesive. Also take a couple of tiles into a tile shop and compare with different colour grouts. If you have spare tiles you can also stick them on a board and try different colour groats on the gaps in order to see what would look best as this enables you to see how it should look.

Mr_Proctalgia

Good idea paul H stick them to a board with silicone (just a bit mind you) then you can recover them for future use

smartiepants

Thanks to everyone for thier invaluable information, my husband wouldn't beleive me when I said that the people on this site were fantastic in wanting to help each other, it really does show that not everyone is bad, You have all really, really helped us, Thanks again so much.:)
XXXX

smartiepants

Just wanted to let you know that the tiles are now down and grouted, we actually used 1.5 mm spacers, because its a large area I wanted a fairly uniform colour . It looks fantastic, thanks again for all your help xxxx

Tilemeister

1.5 mm is to small. I hope you dont have trouble with the grout cracking and coming back out over the next month (it will im a tiler 5mm is better on a floor)
when it does rake it out and then use flexible grout.
only grout about four tiles at a time then wash off as it will stick like the proverbial
cheers Steve

smartiepants

Tilemeister wrote:

1.5 mm is to small. I hope you dont have trouble with the grout cracking and coming back out over the next month (it will im a tiler 5mm is better on a floor)
when it does rake it out and then use flexible grout.
only grout about four tiles at a time then wash off as it will stick like the proverbial
cheers Steve

Thats re-assuring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for letting us know, we will keep you posted, however we will be back in UK for Sept, so it might be Oct before we reply, but so far so good :j