22
Nov/093
Nov/093
Is Replacing Carpet With Ceramic Tile Something That A Not So Handy Person Can Do?
I just bought my first house. I love everything about it except for the fact that the carpet in the living room goes all the way to the front door….I want to cut out a section of it and put in a tile entrance way. I got a couple quotes from some professionals and they were all more than I’m willing to pay…I can do it myself for a fraction of the price but don’t want to scew it up…how hard is this?
Comments (3)
Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post )
Leave a comment
No trackbacks yet.
11:36 am on November 22nd, 2009
I do tile for a living. This can be a do-it-yourself project, but it would be best if you had someone handy to serve as a reference incase you ran into problems. When you cut your carpet and padding up, clean the concrete slab with sulfamic or muriatic acid. Make sure to rinse the slab with water before you install as the high ph of the acid against the alkaline thinset will potentially hurt the bond between the two. Installation itself shouldn’t be too difficult if you’re dealing with a small, square area. You will want to make your cuts on a hand cutter (you can rent them at most wholesale distributors), and your joint/compound cuts on an angle grinder or similar (also can be rented). If your grout joints are an eighth of an inch or wider, use sanded grout. If you are going with joints smaller than that, you will want to use unsanded grout. For thinset, I would recommend Silver 220 By Laticrete, or Prospec/Bonsal’s multipurpose white. I would highly advise against slacking on materials when it comes to price. A few extra bucks can make the difference between an average job and a professional job. You may need to float your subfloor if the slab itself is not very level. You will most likely want to consult with a pro if you get into that situation.
2:22 pm on November 22nd, 2009
Home Depot sells a book called tile 1-2-3. I actually resell it in my flooring store for folks just like you. Tile is somewhat tedious, but really not overly complicated. It is a lot of hard work but without the technical skills needed for carpet or vinyl. I would really recommend that book, it’s about $15. You will find doing your own tile job one of the most rewarding things you can do. Just in case you are wondering, we pros charge around 7-9$ per sq foot just to put in tile. That of course includes the supplies, but about half of that is labor charge.
7:53 pm on November 22nd, 2009
Pay the professional. The tiles break very easily. You need subflorrign in correctly. It would be easier and you will save yourself the headache.