Barking Moonbat Early Warning System

Death once had a near-Sarah Palin experience.

Sunday - September 12, 2010

A Time To Dry

We spent nearly the entire day yesterday laying tile. The actual work only took about 3 hours, but the debate took up half the day. Which wall is the straight one? Which way do we lay the tiles?

I did my Mr. Math thing, and made up a spreadsheet in Excel that found the exact center point of the room, and calculated the exact number of tiles, with their grout spacing, and how much each edge tile would have to be trimmed so that everything would fit perfectly. I even put in a 1/4” offset next to the tub for caulking, and to leave a little room in case the tub ever needed to come out.

Well, like the best laid plans of mice and men, the pre-laid plans of tile oft go astray as well. Because the materials lied to us. Our ‘6” tiles’ were only 5 25/32” on a side. We bought a bag full of those little rubber X spacers, labeled as ‘ 1/8” / 3mm ‘ which is also a lie. They measure 3mm, 0.1215”, not 1/8”, 0.125”. And they turned out to be a real pain in the ass to use, squishing flat under pressure, popping out of the grooves, falling over etc. So I rebuilt the whole spreadsheet, then said to hell with it and just laid out the tiles on the floor. And purchased 2 bags of the magnificent crosshair spacers, which measure the actual 1/8” space we’re looking for. I don’t know who invented these things, but I hope he retires a millionaire. He deserves it. They are wonderful.

My mistake. We spent the next couple of hours fidgeting with them, seeing how they lined up this way and that, using the square and the level and drawing lines on the concrete ... and finally laying them out on an axis that was within 1/4” of the first line I’d drawn that was parallel with the edge of the tub. Is everybody happy now? Good, let’s get to work.

One of the purchases made for this project is a mixing rod you can hook up to a drill. They had two models at the hardware store. One was this thin little plastic coated rod with a spiral thingy on the end, and the other was a tool built to Drew Spec. Made from 3/8” hexagonal stainless steel with 4 rectangular loops on the business end, it’s 3 pounds and 24” of Git ‘Er Done. It only cost $1 more than the spiral one, so you know which mixer I bought. What they didn’t tell you, and what I will, is that mixing up 50 pounds of Laticrete thin-set concrete in a 5 gallon bucket with that mixing tool is enough to absolutely smoke a cheapo 3/8” electric drill. Oh, and that, as usual, Laticrete mixes need a bit more water than the bag says they do. So while my wife opened all the doors and windows, and got up on a chair to turn off the smoke alarm, I mixed up the tile setting concrete and blew the smoke out of the drill. Hey, it didn’t actually catch on fire, and today it still works. So no damage done I guess. Next time, I’m getting a 1/2HP 1/2” or 3/4” drill to use with it. If there ever is a next time. But with the addition of an extra pint of water the batch mixed up velvet smooth in just a minute or two, and we got a good 6 hours working time out of it. Naturally, we ran out of mix about 12 tiles short of finishing the job. So we had to make up a tiny batch from the extra bag of mix we thought we might be able to return to the store. At which point I found out that this paddle mixer is strong enough to break a little 2 gallon bucket. Oops. Ain’t that how it always goes?

And so to work. And work. And work. Concrete is hard on your knees. We worked in shifts, each of us tiling until our knees got sore, then taking a break. My breaks were my chance to use the tile saw our neighbor lent us. She’s great. And it too was a godsend. Forget those stupid nippers, or that bothersome scratch ‘n snap tile cutter. Get a tile saw. Borrow one. Rent one. Buy an inexpensive one like hers. But get the saw. It’s the only way to go. Plus it makes really HUGE noises when you cut the tiles. Awesome. Sounds like somebody chainsawing a donkey. Scares the neighbors. Kewl! I was even able to use it to cut the curve in the tiles that fit around the toilet flange by making a series of close parallel cuts up to a line I’d drawn. Turn the tile and saw from the other direction, and then snapped right off. Neat.

The saw has a little 4” diamond edged blade. You fill the inside with water, and then it sprays muddy water at you whenever you cut a tile. I recommend wearing a rubber apron and some googles.

And we kept right on working. And those spacers really showed their inherent worth. They keep the grout grooves perfectly lined up. Turn one over and it’s little plastic feet are perfect for getting the extra concrete out of the groove. Use the footed side along the edges of the row of tiles you’re laying, and put the crosshairs in the intersections. If the disk isn’t laying flat to all 4 tiles it means some of the tiles aren’t level. So make an adjustment. It turns out that my mass is wonderful for making tile adjustments. If I balance myself on my fingertips over the “uphill” side of a tile, it quickly becomes the downhill side if I’m not careful. My wife is less than half my weight, so she found my special ability very useful. Which meant that my breaks between tiling sessions weren’t really breaks, but a matter of standing by waiting to be called on the squish down another tile. Ah, togetherness.

And finally it was done. The whole floor is level, every tile is lined up just so, no edges stick up anywhere, all the grooves have plenty of room for grout, and the whole floor is within 1/8” of perfectly square to the tub. Good enough.

While we wait for the glop to dry we will go out and do stuff for the day, making sure to stop off at the hardware store for yet another purchase. My wife was really sold on the colored grout, but it turns out that the stuff is a sanded grout mix. You really don’t want sanded grout when using a narrow groove like we are. So we’ll take it back and get some unsanded grout mix. Probably in plain old white, which is what I wanted to do originally. Hey, what’s one more trip to the hardware store at this point?

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Posted by Drew458

on 09/12/2010 at 10:46 AM
Filed Under: • Daily Life •
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