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How to Repatch Ceramic Floor Tiles
Learn how you can repair those annoying little patches of tiles yourself
Have you ever had an annoying spot on your floor where you wish that the floor tiler could have gone one step further? Or have you ever moved a door opening and now the tiling doesnt quite go under the doorway? Patching ceramic floor tiles is not really a difficult job to be done.
Here are the tools that you will need for this job:
You will need a tile cutter, a small trowel or spreader, a Carborundum stone, which is used for the smoothing of the edges of the tiles, a scrap piece of timber which will support the thick bed until it dries, a straight edge, and a tape measure and pencil. You will also need enough tiles to cover the area that you need to patch up. You also will require some adhesive or tile cement. All of these items will be available at your local hardware store.
So now we have everything that we need for this job, what next?
1) Prepare the floor surface so that it is perfectly clean, firm and dry. Then you might want to roughen the floor up a little by sanding, as this will help the adhesion of the tiles.
2) Fix the piece of timber along the edge of the area that you want to tile, as this will give you your straight edge to work with. You might want to lightly oil the piece of timber as this will stop it from sticking to the mortar. You can fix this piece of timber to an area such as a door jamb. This is done by lightly nailing the timber onto the doorframe, however make sure that the nail sticks out far enough so that you can remove it easily when you are finished.
3) Mark the tiles using the tile cutter, score the surface of the tile heavily with the cutter. Place a match underneath the tile and press down. This will break the tile along the line that you scored. Then you might want to use the stone to smooth off the edges of the tile. You can hire a proper tile-cutting machine from your local decorating store or hardware store. Using one of these makes the job of cutting so much easier for you.
4) Mix up the mortar cement to the desired consistency and apply onto the back of the tile.
5) Lay the tiles in place and carefully tap them down with a wooden block until they are level with the rest of the floor. If there is too much mortar under the tiles then you will need to scrape it off, as this could cause the tiles to crack when you are trying to level them with the floor.
6) Using your straight edge, make sure that the tiles all line up with the rest of the floor and each other.
7) Wipe off any excess mortar, this is best done while the mortar is still slightly wet, as it can be very difficult to remove once it is dry. When all of this has been done then you can carefully remove the piece of timber.
8) Allow anything up to two days for the tiles to be fully fixed in. So be very careful when you walk over them.
Patching up ceramic tiles need not be a difficult job for you to do, and it can be a lot of fun too.
Learn how you can repair those annoying little patches of ceramic floor tiles yourself.
Keywords
Ceramic Floor Tiles
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