Tiling Standards (BS 5385) | British Wall and Floor Tiling Standards - IN FULL

[Marvo]

Are there any tiling-specific British Standards or any other standards for that matter that tilers are required to work to?

Are tilers officially certified in any way as being competant or being of a certain legally recognised professional standard? Is the trade regulated legally in any way?

Are there official qualifications a tiler can hold that would set him apart as being better that others?

Please don't take this question the wrong way, I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Dan]

BS5385 if I remember rightly. British standards in wall and floor tiling. Yeah.

There's a lot of surface types (plaster, plasterboard, concrete, tongue and groove, ply, then tile boards etc etc, and even existing tiles) that we tile to. And a lot of tile types that have different adhesion properties. So full-bodied (or full vitrified) porcelain doesn't really absorb water, so standard adhesives don't bond to it well, you need one with polymer additives in, or whatever it is.

Ceramics with a 'biscuit' backing adhere to anything though.

Times are changing these days. People want heated floors tiled on timber of some form with huge tiles. And if they're translucent, you need light coloured adhesive and then skim the tiles individually as well as trowelling the surface.

BS states that tiles should only have a certain mm undulation over a 2m length too, and states that you need certain mm grout joints for walls and floors (2mm for walls, 3mm for floors i think I is, lads?).

So yeah, might not be as technical as electrical (you don't get killed sticking tiles in water either) but you can get sued just as easy if you screw up.

 

[J Sid]

Hi Marvo
Yes as Dan says, there is a British Standard covering things to know. I believe this is published by a public body, but sadly it will you cost you may thousands of pounds to own it.
Yes there are qualifications you can get, but from I have seen this will not mean you able to tile to a very high standard.

I have noticed that if you get a qualification in painting and decorating you will be well placed to get more tiling work than you will need.

 

[Just Rizzle]

I started tiling in 1982 working for a building firm in Hartlepool then in 85 moved to woking in surrey where I started working as a subby .first big job was expanding a prison complex at Feltham spent 2years tiling there had home office clark of works who were real ba/ards work had to bespot on ie 3mm over 3mts or it was up and had to do again it was also sand and cement work no addhesives .
33yrs on and still going and learning some thing new every day. the thing with this trade is experience is more important imho than any thing you learn on a basic 2 week training course took a guy on once had a piece of paper that said he could tile. had to rip it all out and re do lesson learnt .
wish I had a pound for every tile ive fixed would be a multi millionaire by now

 

[Dave]

It's BS5385 .. For the Standards.

Qualifications range from city and guilds or modern day NVQ's ..

 

[Marvo]

I downloaded the BS5385-1 to 5 to check it out and I was very surprised how specific and extensive the regs are. There's a regulation about lots of things that I always thought might be down to customer taste or just the preference of the tiler or even the manufacturer etc. I glanced through some of them and I even learned a few things in the process, I now know what 'spatterdash' is for example so every day is a school day I guess.

 

[Ian]

I downloaded the BS5385-1 to 5 to check it out and I was very surprised how specific and extensive the regs are. There's a regulation about lots of things that I always thought might be down to customer taste or just the preference of the tiler or even the manufacturer etc. I glanced through some of them and I even learned a few things in the process, I now know what 'spatterdash' is for example so every day is a school day I guess.

Did you have to pay for the download?

 

[Marvo]

Erm, not as such. It's legal where I am as long as I don't use or distribute for profit. I'm pretty sure this isn't the case in the UK though.

 

[Dan]

Nah we can get a slapped wrist if we lend a copy to somebody over here lol

 

[J Sid]

That's just fluffing great, those who need it pay thousands, those who don't get it for free.