You can find ceramic and porcelain floor tiles online to create a beautiful kitchen, bathroom or living area. Once you've had the fun of selecting your favourite designs, you'll need to get the details of purchasing and laying them right. Here are some tips.
Working Out The Number Of Tiles To Purchase
It can be tricky to arrive at the exact number of tiles you'll need for a project. For this, measure—and remeasure—the width and length of the floor area in millimetres. First, divide the floor area length by the tile length to arrive at A. Second, divide the room width by the tile width to arrive at B. Third, multiply A by B.
For instance, imagine the floor area is 3 metres (3000mm) by 2 metres (2000mm), and the tile size is 300mm x 300mm. 3000 divided by 300 = 10 tiles for the floor area length. 2000 divided by 300 = 6.7 for the floor area width—so you would need seven tiles to cover the area width. Then, 10 times 7 = 70 tiles overall. Remember, however, to purchase an extra 10% to 15% as cover for any future breakages or accidents.
Dry Laying Your Tiles First
Once you stick your tiles to the surface with adhesive, it's challenging to do a U-turn if you're not happy with the outcome. But you can get an idea of the effect by simply dry laying your tiles first. This involves laying out all the tiles, without glue, in the room to see whether the flooring fulfils your vision. You can have fun experimenting with possible layouts, adjusting tile angles and colours. Plus, you'll be able to work out precisely where the tiles will need cutting. Once you're happy with the aesthetics, then it's full steam ahead to the permanent job using adhesive.
Variable Sizes
You might notice when you remove your tiles from the box that they vary minutely in size. Ceramic and porcelain tiles consist of natural clay and other elements. During the firing process in the furnace, each tile can shrink a bit. Typically, once spread out, such variances don't stand out, as the malleable grout allows for the slight readjustment of each tile.
Dry laying your tiles provide the chance for you to notice any size variances—and shade differences also—so you can scatter and spread the tiles for a uniform effect.
Rectified Or Not
The baking process hardens clay tiles so that they develop smooth pillow edges. Once covering a surface with tiles, you'll see valleys running along the grout lines, where the tiles curve softly inwards. For a sharp-edged flat tiling surface, install rectified tiles which undergo machine trimming into more precise sizes with flat edges.
Contact a company that sells floor tiles online for additional information.
