A well-chosen floor can be ruined during installation. And the other way round: a simple material, properly set out and properly grouted, ages with surprising dignity. Between the tile you choose in the showroom and the surface you walk on every morning there is a week of decisions that are almost never taken calmly.<\/p>\n
This guide gathers those decisions. It is not a manual for laying tiles yourself \u2014that is a professional’s job\u2014 but what is worth settling before<\/strong> the work starts: how much material to order, what grout joint you are willing to accept, which adhesive your format calls for, and why large formats change every rule.<\/p>\n\n In short<\/strong><\/p>\n Three things are decided before the first pallet arrives, and all three are hard to correct afterwards.<\/p>\n Setting out.<\/strong> This is the drawing of where every tile falls. It determines where laying begins, where the cuts end up and whether the first row you see on entering is a full tile or a three-centimetre sliver. Ask your installer to plan it on paper and to keep cut pieces at the perimeters and under furniture, never on the room’s main sight line.<\/p>\n Quantity.<\/strong> Work out the real surface area and add 10\u201315 %<\/strong> for cuts, breakages and future replacements. Go to 15 % for diagonal layouts or very long formats. That margin is not waste: it is what will let you replace a tile in five years’ time without it showing.<\/p>\n The batch (shade and calibre).<\/strong> Ceramic tiles are made in firings, and between one and another there can be a slight difference in shade or size. All the material for a given room must come from the same batch, and it is worth keeping a few spare tiles from it. This is the detail most often forgotten and the one that causes the most trouble.<\/p>\n If you are still choosing the material, these two guides come first: how to choose the right porcelain floor for each room<\/a> and the difference between stoneware and porcelain<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n No adhesive corrects a bad substrate. The surface must be clean, stable, dry and flat<\/strong>, and with large formats the flatness requirement is far stricter: a three-millimetre undulation that goes unnoticed on a 30 \u00d7 30 becomes a lipped edge on a 120 cm tile, and at that point the only solution is to lift it.<\/p>\n If the substrate does not give the necessary flatness, it is levelled beforehand with a self-levelling compound. It costs a day and avoids the one truly irreversible mistake.<\/p>\n Ceramic adhesives are classified under EN 12004<\/strong>, and the code on the bag is not marketing: it describes exactly what the product does.<\/p>\n For porcelain \u2014which, because of its very low water absorption, grips less readily than a porous wall tile\u2014 the norm is a C2 TE<\/strong>, and for large formats, underfloor heating, outdoor work or substrates subject to movement, a C2 TE S1<\/strong> or better. That is not over-specifying: it is what a non-absorbent material requires.<\/p>\n It is the most repeated conversation in the showroom. Someone wants a continuous floor with no lines and asks for it to be laid tight. The honest answer is that the zero joint does not exist<\/strong> in ceramics, and anyone who promises it is creating a problem two years down the line.<\/p>\n Ceramic expands and contracts with temperature and humidity. The joint is what absorbs that movement. Without it, the stress releases wherever it can: lifting tiles or cracking them.<\/p>\n What you can do is reduce it to a minimum<\/strong>, and that is what rectification<\/strong> is for: rectified tiles have their edges machined after firing, so they all measure exactly the same and accept a very fine joint. As a usual site reference:<\/p>\n\n
Before buying: setting out, quantity and batch<\/h2>\n
The substrate rules: flatness and moisture<\/h2>\n
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The adhesive: why it almost always ends up being a C2 TE S1<\/h2>\n
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The joint: why “no joint” does not exist<\/h2>\n