LESLIE: Heading over to Nevada to chat with Brett about a tiling project. What can we do for you?
BRETT: Well, I’m doing a project in my bathroom and I’ve done a lot of ceramic stuff on my floors before. I’ve laid down a lot of ceramic tile. But this time I’m going to be putting it on a wall; so it’s going to be a vertical application and I’ve never done that before and I’m a little nervous about it. Are there any sort of tricks of the trade that I can apply to this so that I don’t have any problems?
TOM: Well, it’s not that difficult to do. I mean if you use a good-quality adhesive you actually can put those tiles up as you go. They won’t – they’ll stay firmly in place. They won’t shift. They won’t move. They won’t float around. We always recommend working from the bottom up and the layout is really the most critical. You need to figure out your cuts first because you don’t want to end up against the ceiling with a small piece.
BRETT: Right.
TOM: If you’re going to have something small you want to have that towards the bottom.
BRETT: OK, but there’s nothing – because I had looked up some stuff on the internet and they showed people that had used like strips of wood to keep the tile in place. I don’t need to worry about anything like that?
TOM: I don’t think so. Leslie, you’ve done a lot of that before.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) No, as long as your adhesive is mixed properly. If you’re mixing your own you want it the right consistency. You want to make sure that it is the perfect sort of tack-ticity, if you will; it’s sticky enough so that the tile is going to go on. Choose a tile – you know are you looking at one that has a mesh backing; are you looking at individual tiles? What kind are you choosing?
BRETT: These actually have a mesh backing.
LESLIE: The mesh backing really makes it fantastic because the adhesive sort of squeezes through each of those little perforations on the mesh and it really helps it adhere. Again, work from the bottom up. Make sure that when you lay it in you’re not sort of compressing all of the mesh that helps with the layout.
BRETT: Right.
LESLIE: As long as you’ve got everything prepped properly; you’ve got your backer board on the wall, I think you’ll really have a good project.
BRETT: Excellent. Thank you very much for your assistance.
TOM: You’re welcome, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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