What Not To Do With Slate Tile Flooring

When ordering bulk amounts of slate tile flooring, anything can happen! That is why it is important that you do not assume that all of your shipment will arrive in one piece.

This is the stark reality of ordering a material that is made solely of rock. There may be some wear and tear in the shipping and handling process (and at home).

So, it is highly recommended that you order a bit of extra slate tiles to counter for this possibility. It is far more better to have a surplus of tile floors than to come up short, and have to go through the time-wasting process of waiting for another small shipment to arrive to finish the job.

As soon as you receive your entire set of floor tiles, be sure to inspect each and every single one of them. Do set aside the ones with chips and cracks, and any other broken tiles so you can return them.

When doing a dry run of installing the slate tiles, and/or when doing the actual installation, you should never forget to check for loose debris and dirt on the surface areas.

If there are any loose materials lingering around, it will not make for a smooth installation into the floor substrate.
The tiles will have a high chance of being quite unlevel with each other.

When you are ready to place the floor tiles down, be sure to check if the surface area is wet or not. If the floor is wet, don't install a thing! Even though your research has told you that slate tiles are robust, it is still good common sense to have when taking chances with trapped moisture. You just don't know what to expect with moisture and mother nature.

Also, once you have all of the slate tile flooring down, you may move on to the waxing procedures. This is a very crucial step, actually, for it is a waiting process. You can not proceed to the next step of applying sealer until all of the wax has finished curing.

The last thing you want to deal with is seeing footprints all over your beautiful array of slate tiles--footprints permanently set in the wax because you did not wait long enough. The last I heard, the marks are extremely difficult to clean up.

When beginning the grouting process, you must also wait in order to embark on this. Typically, you will want to hold out for an entire day after the slate tiles have settled into the mortar. This will allow sufficient time for the mortar to set properly into place, when you can grout away.

There quite a handful of tools you should have on hand for this huge project. Make sure you have them all ready to go, as this process of laying down slate tile flooring is rather tedious and potentially painstaking! So what tools should you be using? I will address them in the next posting!