kitchen tiles.

[womanonamission]

morning, my 1st post, so be gentle.
were havin the kitchen refitted, should we tile the floor b4 or after the units go in?
also are tiles the best way to go in a kitchen? or would laminate or lino or wood be better?
thanks.

 

[Burnerman]

Tile first, then you wont get a step where the washing machine etc goes.
As for the actual covering, then it has to be up to you. Personally I don't like tiles on a suspended timber floor as access is very awkward afterwards.....laminate flooring needs a perfectly flat floor to go on to which is sometimes an issue.
Personally I like a good quality cushion floor lino thats easy to clean.
John

 

[749s]

Tile first, then install units on the tiles.

 

[PaulEamomm]

As the two previous posters have said, in an ideal world, tiling the complete floor gives an overall nicer finish especially if you are prepared to go to the expense of taking off the skirting and architrave and then replacing them over the tiles so as to avoid any potentially unsightly grout joints around the edge of the room.

However, IMHO it's not necessary to do so if you would prefer or need to save a few quid here and there.

For example, if your kitchen is 12' x 12' with couple of doors and a bit of wall space the 'wasted' area of tiling under the floor units (that you'll never see) could amount to 4 or 5 sq m of tiling. Labour and materials on that could be £200 plus depending on the price of the tiles and tiler you're using. I'd prefer to spend that on something more interesting.

As far as I'm concerned the best way to go is to have the fitters cut the kick plates 3/4" short and then get the tiler to lay your tiles up to the legs of the floor units. Then, when the kick plates are fitted it will look like you've tiled under the cupboards but you haven't.

With regards to the appliances (provided you're not fitting integral) you can just ask the tiler to tile into the recesses. This will avoid the problem of the step as mentioned by Burnerman. Just make sure that you tell the kitchen fitters that you will be having the floor tiled so as they know to allow for this when they set the height of the floor units. If they fail to do this you'll find that, once the floor is tiled, there won't be enough head room for the appliances under the worktop.

 

[sheslookinhot]

Fit all units and appliances and then tile last. Then you can fit the plinths on top of the tiles.

 

[joe-90]

Tile first. Whole floor if you can. Otherwise tile bays where the appliances will go.

 

[jctilingservices]

personally speaking i would tile the entire floor first, then set the kitchen out

 

[Richard C]

I’ve only been tiling where appliances go to date but I had an interesting call back quiet recently which could sway me. Complaints of a slight smell & salts on the grout lines in the tiles near the sink. On investigation it turned out to be a split concertina dishwasher drain hose which had obviously had a small leak for quiet some time; it was under the sink where it wasn’t tiled & where the hose routed to the waste outlet. So it leaked enough water on a daily basis to fill the void in the floor where there were no tiles but not enough to flood the kitchen floor. Some evaporation but a lot of the water was obviously then draining into the small voids in the tile adhesive under the tiles leaving enough space for the next leak so it never really showed beyond the plinth as a leak; the only clue was the white staining on the grout lines & musty smell. It looked & smelt awful under there but a new hose & a good clean up with pine disinfectant saw the leak fixed & after a week the salts stopped coming through as well.

It wasn’t even really my problem but easily solved & I thanked God (& BAL) that I only ever use decent adhesive/grout.