Do-it-yourself tile laying can save you considerable money, as craftsmen usually equate the cost of laying a square meter of material to the cost of a square meter of it, which is quite expensive. This type of decoration of walls and floors has a certain number of advantages: durability, the surface is easy to wash, you can create interiors of various styles.
The materials existing in our time allow even people with minimal skills in construction to carry out quality work. Laying tiles in several stages. The first and very important step is surface preparation. This is a time-consuming job, as you will have to get rid of the old finish with a chisel or puncher. Surfaces that have been cleaned of old coatings and adhesives require careful preparation. Laying the tiles is carried out only on flat surfaces, since this is the only way to achieve its good quality. For leveling surfaces, a plumb line and a level are usually used. Walls are aligned with plaster. Angles are checked using a square. They should be 90 °. The floors should also be perfectly flat. The horizontalness of the floor is checked by the building level.
To level the surfaces you will need the following tools and objects: a container for special mixtures, a mixer, a drill, a water level, a plumb line, trowel, grater, spatulas (large and small). Plastering is carried out from bottom to top. The evenness of the walls is checked using beacons.
Alignment of floors is carried out using special building mixtures. It is recommended to lay waterproofing in the bathroom, kitchen and toilet. Its alignment is carried out according to the marks applied to the walls, made using the level. Work is carried out in the direction from the wall to the door. Air bubbles from the mortar are removed with a needle roller.
Laying tiles is not possible without adhesive mixtures. The most suitable are modern special dry mixes, which are now sold in any specialized store.
This type of work can be carried out using the following technology:
1. Preparing the adhesive according to the attached instructions. It is made using a mixer mounted on a drill. The dry mixture is added to water in small portions, after which it is thoroughly mixed.
2. Laying tiles on the marked walls is made in the direction from the bottom up, namely, the first row is laid out, and above it all the subsequent ones. All rows must be checked for evenness using a staff. The solution is applied to each tile separately with a notched trowel, after which it is firmly pressed to the base. Special crosses are inserted into the seams, designed for their evenness. They come in several sizes, but the most popular are those whose dimensions are 2-3 mm. Alignment of rows vertically is checked using a plumb line.
3. Where whole tiles cannot be placed, their pieces are used, cut using a tile cutter, glass cutter or grinder.
4. After the adhesive has dried, the surface is cleaned of cured adhesive, and the seams are wiped with a special grout that can be selected in any suitable color.
There are different ways to perform this type of work, such as “dressing,” “seam to seam,” “diagonally.” Diagonal laying of tiles is most often used when facing very large surfaces. With this method of facing, tile joints cross the line of contact of the walls at an angle of 45 °, and they themselves form perpendicular lines. This method is the most expensive, time consuming and complicated, because it requires a lot of cut tiles of certain sizes