Everything
You Wanted to Know About Tile Flooring but Were Afraid
to Ask
This great
question and answer section covers the popular questions
we've been asked about tile flooring:
Subflooring
before Laying New Tile Flooring
What
do I need to know about putting a subfloor over an old
floor before putting down new tile flooring in the bathroom
and kitchen, and carpet in the other rooms?
The total thickness of subfloor and underlayment under
the tile flooring should be at least 1 1/8 inch thick.
The material under tile should be exterior grade plywood
CDX or better. However, tile backer board is best, especially
in the bathroom. (It is unaffected by water) . It is
also more rigid and made for under tile flooring. Under
your carpets, you can get away with plywood or even
particleboard. Plywood is better ,(but more expensive).
Removing
Rust Stains from Tile
What's
the best method of removing spot rust stains from white
ceramic tile flooring?
You
can use a product called CLR (calcium-lime-rust) available
from hardware stores and supermarkets. It brings out
the original glow in your tile flooring. Very good product!
Removing Dried Grout on Flagstone
How
can dried grout be removed from the surface of flagstone
as well as the grout film.
There
is a tool called a grout remover that you can by at
Lowe's or home depot in the flooring department.
Removing
Old Grout
I'm
curious if there is an easy way to remove the old grout
on my large entry way tile floors?
I've
used a Dremel and the old hammer and cold chisel method.
Both have proved to be inefficient and extremely time
consuming. Unfortunately short of tearing up your old
floor there is no easy way to remove old grout between
the floor tiles. The grout is a cement and sand mix,
which can only be removed by mechanical means as you
have been doing. Depending what your purpose for removal
is may dictate a less severe approach. If you are going
to regrout, which would be my guess, you may want to
try just removing part of the grout at least 1/4" deep
with a carbide grout removing tool available at most
tile supply or hardware stores. Simply remove to this
minimum depth dampen and re-grout as done originally.
Re-Grouting/Grout Painting
I
do not like the color of the grout on the tile floor
in my foyer. Is it possible to re grout over the existing
grout, or is it possible to paint the grout? The flooring
has not been sealed.
I
recently tore out the linoleum that was hiding the original
tile in my 75-year-old house. It's the old 1-inch hexagonal
ceramic tile. After using adhesive remover to get all
the linoleum adhesive off. I took some tile/grout acid
wash, which I purchased at Home Depot, and used it to
etch into the grout a little bit. You could do the same
by hand with a knife or small screwdriver, but with
my small tiles it would have taken too long.
Anyways,
after finishing the acid wash, I put grout colorant
(which can also be found at Home Depot or other big
Home Improvement stores) over the grout lines. It takes
45 minutes to dry. Then you scrub any excess off the
tile with a scotchbrite plastic scrubber pad. The ones
with the scrubber pad on one side of a sponge work well
b/c you can scrub the excess off the tiles, then wipe
it up with a sponge. Do not use steel wool of any kind.
I
was quite pleased with the results. It wasn't perfect,
but I didn't expect it to be given the poor shape of
the grout I was coloring and the amount of grout involved.
It was pretty close though. I would imagine if you have
newer grout it would work wonderfully on tile flooring.
Removing Ceramic Tile Flooring
How
hard is it to remove ceramic tile flooring, and what
would be the procedure? I would like to replace smaller
8x8 tiles with larger 13x13, if it's not too difficult.
Removing ceramic tile flooring is easy. Take a hammer
and break it. The mortar underneath will break along
with the tile. Once the tile is removed just measure
out the area and layout the tile flooringand going to
a larger size tile should be alright.
