In home decoration, ceramic tiles are basically chosen for the floors of the kitchen and bathroom at home. In addition, for the floors of guest rooms and restaurants in home decoration, most friends also choose ceramic tiles. When laying tiles on the ground, we all will find that the tiler will first spread a layer of binding material on the ground, and then use cement slurry to paste the tiles on the ground.

So a friend asked this question: When laying floor tiles, why do we need to use sand and gravel as a base, then lay a layer of cement grout, and finally lay the tiles on the grout? Why can’t you just use grout to lay floor tiles?

What is the sand and gravel used when laying ceramic tiles on the floor?

The first point is to first explain to you the sand and gravel mentioned in the title. In fact, the sand and gravel mentioned here should be our Changshu dry-mixed cement mortar. The specific composition is to use cement and sand. After mixing according to a certain proportion, a certain amount of water is added and stirred into a dry-mixed material. This is what we call dry mix cement mortar.

Secondly, let’s look at the specific role of paving cement mortar before laying floor tiles. The first function of laying a layer of gravel on the ground can be to level the ceramic tiles. Because the flatness of our ground cannot reach zero error, this layer of dry-mixed cement mortar has a certain leveling effect. Because when using a rubber mallet to hit, you can have a certain amount of activity.

What are the specific steps for laying ceramic tiles on the floor?

The first step is to clean the floor where you plan to install tiles. Here you must clean up the dust, mortar, concrete blocks, etc. on the ground, and then pour a layer of cement slurry on the area where you plan to lay the floor tiles. The so-called cement slurry is to add some cement to water, stir it into a thin material, and then pour it directly on the ground. It can increase the bonding of the bonding layer and prevent the ground from absorbing water.

The second step is to spread the mixed dry mix cement mortar on the area where we pour the grout. That is to say, you can use a shovel to spread these dry-mixed cement mortars, and then use a giant-toothed scraper to perform basic scraping, and then you can prepare to lay floor tiles on top.

The third step is to lay the floor tiles. There are two methods for laying floor tiles: one method is to pour grout on dry-mixed cement mortar, and the other method is to apply a layer of cement slurry on top of dry-mixed cement mortar or apply a layer of cement glue on the back of the tile. . Finally, the tiles are laid on the dry cement mortar and hammered firmly with a rubber hammer to meet our flatness requirements.

What are the problems with using cement slurry to lay floor tiles directly on the ground?

The first problem is that the floor tiles cannot be leveled as mentioned above. Because when using cement slurry to lay floor tiles, you only apply a thin layer on the back of the tiles, or a thin layer on the ground. The thickness of this layer is basically within 5mm, so it is so thin. The cement slurry cannot level the ground. Then the effect of our final paving will definitely be uneven.

The second point is to prevent the floor tiles we lay from direct contact with the original reinforced concrete structural floor. As we all know, if we put a tile on the ground and step on it, if the ground is uneven in any way, the tile may be stepped on and cracked. This happens when we use cement slurry to lay floor tiles, so this can also prevent our floor tiles from being stepped on and cracked to a certain extent. The main reason here is that the combined area of the floor tiles and the ground is inconsistent.

The third point is that if we are laying out some water pipes in our home, we cannot rely on the cement mortar we lay to cover these water pipes. Because conventional home decoration requires the use of floor tile bonding materials to cover up and hide some of the modified water pipes.

What are the methods for directly pasting floor tiles without using cement mortar?

The first method is to directly use tile adhesive, which is what we call tile adhesive, to lay the tiles on the floor. When laying floor tiles with tile adhesive, because the tile adhesive itself is also flexible, it can be laid directly on the ground.

In addition, you can also use tile adhesive to simply level the floor, because in the process of laying tiles on the floor and using tile adhesive, you need to scrape a layer of tile adhesive on the back of the tiles and the ground. The combined thickness of these two layers of tile adhesive is about 10mm, which can basically meet the leveling needs.

The second method is to use the method of laying ceramic tiles overhead. The method of laying ceramic tiles overhead was first used to install some electrostatic floors, so that there is a gap at the bottom of the tiles where some telephone and network cables can be installed.

In fact, we can also adopt this approach in our homes. First, install the keels and brackets of the floor tiles, and finally install the tiles on the keel brackets. This approach is only more expensive, and dust will easily accumulate in the lower part of the ceramic tiles later to produce bacteria. So many families will not choose this method.

This is the full introduction of the application of dry mortar in tile installation in this article, I hope it can help everyone. At the same time, there are other excellent articles on our website that you can continue to browse.