HI - new tiler advice please

[alexburtt]

Good evening,

I'm just on with buying my first house with my girlfriend, a new build property, and as such need to put flooring down, including carpets in the living areas and suitable floring for the kitchen, bathroom, en suite etc..

I have planned to tile the kitchen and have bought suitable tiles to do this. The kitchen floor is solid concrete and is comlpetely flat and level. My questions are as follows.

1. I have already bought the kitchen tiles from Wickes, 450x450x90mm ceramic tiles that are PEI 4 rated. So are suitable for floor tiles. Can any one suggest a good adhesive to use. I have considered using Wickes standard Floor Tile Adhesive, would this be suitable for a kitchen? Do i need to use a flexible tile adhesive or is this only necessary for Bathrooms, due to the amount of pssible moisture penetration??

2. The kitchen has plain white skirting board already installed. My question regarding this is, should i lay the tiles flush to the skiting board or do I either need to lay some kind of edging strip or just leave a gap for either grout or silcone sealant?

3. Tile spacers - I seem to only be able to find tile spacers in either thin (about 1.5mm) or 5mm thickness? Is 5mm about the standard for floor tiles, it seems a little big to me, can you get 3.5mm spacers or am i being daft??

Any advice much appreciated. I can't wait to get stuck into this project.

Cheers,
Alex.

 

[Dan]

Welcome to tilersforums.com | Tile Forums | Tiling Forum!

Hello alexburtt, welcome aboard www.tilersforums.com. Stick around, I'm sure you'll like the place. 🙂

 

[DHTiling]

:welcome:

 

[david campbell]

:welcome:to the forum

it would look much nicer if you could remove the skirting board then replace when the tiling is complete,this will ensure you can leave a space for movement and it wont be seen,you should look for a mapei/bal or toppfix cement based adhesive adhesive that doesn't have to be flexible,

3/4 or 5mm spacers will be fine

 

[Ken Bruty]

:welcome:

 

[White Room]

Hi and welcome

1, I'd use a single part flexible
2, You don't mention how many m2 of floor your laying, a small floor just leave a gap between tile and skirting and use Silicon, just a small bead though
3, 3mm minimum, maximum 5mm for the tiles your laying

 

[alexburtt]

David - Thanks for your reply.

Is BAL/MAPEI adhesvie easy to get hold of, i've not seen it in the ususal DIY stores. Why should i use them over Wickes own brand etc??

Are 5mm spacers about standard for floor tiles, do you reckon that would look ok on 450x450 tiles??

 

[faithhealer]

welcome to the forum Alex

 

[Susiequ]

Hi Alex and welcome to the forum. Lots of good advice on here - I can vouch for that!

Susiequ:welcome:

 

[david campbell]

David - Thanks for your reply.

Is BAL/MAPEI adhesvie easy to get hold of, i've not seen it in the ususal DIY stores. Why should i use them over Wickes own brand etc??

Are 5mm spacers about standard for floor tiles, do you reckon that would look ok on 450x450 tiles??

tile giant,topps,ctd or b&q stock mapei under the name buildfix