Don’t know your priming from your buttering? Ezee Tile has put together a glossary of the most common terms used when installing floor tiles as well as for other tiling applications to make installations easier and more successful.
Accelerators
Additives that speed up the performance of tile adhesives.
Additive
Generally refers to a liquid polymer that can be added to a grout or tile adhesive to improve its adhesion, flexibility, strength and water resistance.
Adhesion Failure
Adhesion failure occurs between surfaces such as between tile adhesive and substrate or between tile and adhesive.
Bed Thickness
The thickness of the tile adhesive beneath the tile once the tile has been bedded into the adhesive using a notched trowel.
Bedding In
Applying tiles firmly onto/into the tile adhesive, ensuring good contact between the adhesive and the back of the tiles. Usually achieved by sliding the tile back and forth.
Butt Joint
A technique in which tiles are laid directly adjacent to each other, with no space (grout joint) between the tiles. This method of tiling is not recommended.
Buttering
The spreading of tile adhesive onto the back of a tile just before the tile is bedded into the adhesive on the surface. This is usually done on tiles with irregular back profiles or large format tiles for additional support.
Calibrated/Un-calibrated
A reference to the thickness of the tiles. Calibrated tiles are manufactured to give a uniform depth so they can be bedded into tile adhesive using the same bed depth. Un-calibrated tiles are typically natural stone of varying thickness and require thicker bed depths.
Cohesive Failure
Occurs within the tile adhesive layer or within the substrate or within the body of the tile.
Correction Time
The time which allows the applicator to lay the tile into the adhesive bed and then reposition the tile if necessary.
Curing Time
The time it takes for the tile adhesive to reach sufficient adhesion strength.
Efflorescence
A patina of soluble salts in the form of a whitish powder that remains attached to the surface of the tile. The tile absorbs water from the adhesive that contains these salts. The water evaporates leaving the salts on the surface of the tile. It is not detrimental to grout performance.
Friable
Crumbly or powdery (friable surfaces require surface preparation prior to applying tile adhesive).
Grout
Material used to fill in the joints between tiles after the adhesive has set. Its purpose is to assist with expansion and contraction within the tiling installation.
Mould Resistant
The ability of a product, usually a grout, to resist the growth of mould.
Movement Joints
Gaps left in tiled floor designs and filled with a flexible material to enable the substrates and/or building to move independently of the tiling. Typically between different substrates and where expansion joints are present in the existing floor.to resist the growth of mould.
Open Time
The length of time after the tile adhesive has been applied to the substrate during which it retains its ability to adhere to and bond to a tile. As the tile adhesive starts to dry on the substrate a skin starts to form on the surface of the adhesive. This dry layer interferes with the bond between the adhesive and the tile.
Perimeter Joints
Gaps left along the perimeter of a room where the wall and floor meets and around any fixtures such as sanitary ware.
Polymer Modified
This term refers to the tile adhesive and grout formulations that include added polymer for increased adhesion, water resistance and flexibility. They are common products due to the increased use of vitrified and porcelain tiles, which have a low absorbency and require a better adhesive to adhere them.
Pot Life
The useable life of the tile adhesive once it is mixed and is sitting in the bucket prior to applying the adhesives to the substrate. The average pot life is +- 3 hours at 25ºC and 50% humidity.
Primer
Surface preparation products that are used to prime a surface in order to enhance adhesion, reduce porosity and make the surface more receptive to bonding by adhesives.
Rapid Setting
An adhesive modified so it sets rapidly, by utilising different cements and technologies. Enables tiling and grouting to be carried out in a shorter time frame.
Ready Mixed
Tile adhesives that are supplied ready for use, without the requirement to add any water or liquid polymer. Usually acrylic based and generally only used for wall tile installations.
Render
Fine cement, aggregate mixture that is applied to wall backgrounds. Also known as plaster.
Retarders
Additives that slow down reactions, such as the setting time of cement-based tile adhesives.
Screed
High strength, cement based compound designed for levelling imperfect floors.
Shelf Life
Time of storage under stated conditions during which an adhesive may be expected to maintain its working properties.
Skinning
The formation of a film on the surface of wet adhesive, which impedes the bedding of tiles into the adhesive. This normally happens if the bedding of the tiles is done outside the adhesive open time.
Slip
Also known as ‘slump’. The vertical movement of a wall tile after it has been bedded into an adhesive.
Solid Bed Fixing
A term used to describe a bed of adhesive of greater than 95% between the tile back and adhesive and between adhesive and substrate.
Structural Joint
A gap which starts from the foundation and carries all the way through to the end result.
Waterproof
The ability of a tile adhesive or grout to prevent the passage of water.
Water Resistant
The ability of a tile adhesive or grout to still retain its performance even when subject to full immersion in water.
Workability
The time, usually in minutes, after mixing a tile adhesive or grout that it will still retain its characteristics to enable it to be applied, bedded onto and finished.