Tiling a hearth - setting out.

[Sharpey]

Hello all.

I was hoping you could give me some advice regarding how to tile a hearth. I have done some tiling before, and I usually mark out the centre point of an area and work outwards from there to ensure symmetry.

Taking this approach on the hearths I have to do, I am left with having to have smaller cuts on the external tiles, leaving cut edges exposed and in the case of one hearth, having an external border of just 10mm. The tiles sit higher than the floor so a simple flooring profile is out as an option.

Not only will it not look good but will be quite difficult to cut.

Does any one have any ideas on how to get around this problem? I can't see one myself, but thought I would ask anyway. Only thing I can think of is using tile edging around the perimeter to neaten it a bit, but I've never seen these on hearths myself so doubt it will look very good/authentic.

Hope you can help, thanks for reading.

 

[kbdiy]

What tiles are you using and what will the exposed edges look like without any edging strip?

my suggestion would be to work from the outer edges into the centre and cut the centre tile down to fit. So long as it is symmetrical I think it would look alright and did it myself when I tiled a hearth many years ago.

 

[Sharpey]

Hi.

There are patterned porcelain tiles on two and standard black 15cm quarry tiles on one. I'm not sure what a cross section looks like but I just assumed it would look naff any way because a cut edge will never look as good as a factory cut one.

Working outwards in I don't think will work because you will have a 10mm strip in the middle, unless I have misunderstood you?

Only thing I can think of is getting some wooden moulding around the edge and staining as close as I can to the floor colour?

 

[kbdiy]

If only 10mm could you not use slightly larger spacers to take out the 10mm? An additional 1mm on the spacers might remove the need for the strip perhaps?

 

[Sharpey]

I'm already using 10mm spacers for it to match the other hearth. Don't think you can get any bigger anyway.

Looks like I will have to persevere and do my best. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[ree]

If you post a dimensioned sketch of the hearths a solution might be suggested.

I take it that you have 150mm tiles and want to install border tiles?

Typically, when cutting a tile, cut from in the field not at the exposed edge.

Has any tile actually been set (glued down)?

 

[Sharpey]

Thanks.

Untitled

• Sharpey
• 20 Nov 2014
• 1

That is the basic layout of the hearth. As you can see there are 8 internal tiles across, measuring 15 cm each, with 10mm grout lines. The total width of the hearth is 131cm, with these tiles taking up 127 cm, leaving 2cm either end. This will be filled with one 10mm grout line and one 10mm tile slither. It was these slithers I was trying to avoid but there doesn't seem to be a way. The tiles are plain black.

 

[kbdiy]

The alternative would be to reduce your spacing from 10mm which would gain a considerable amount over that distance, then insert a cut-down centre tile.

Why such a big spacing?

 

[Sharpey]

Because there is another hearth on the other side of the room that has 10mm gaps, so I want it to match. When you say cut down centre tile, do you mean work from the outside inwards, and fill the centre with a cut down tile?

 

[kbdiy]

Yes that's right.

I understand you wanting to match the existing hearth spacings but you could easily loose a mm or 2 without it being obvious I would have thought, plus it will help solve the small centre tile, as the smaller spacing will make a larger tile. Whichever way you go it seems like you will have to compromise somewhere.

 

[Sharpey]

Thanks for the help. You're right, there is no magic fix, I'll weigh it up when I have all the materials and see what looks best.

Thanks again.

 

[SJRSJR]

I'm not a tiler but personally I wouldn't want a cut down centre tile in the middle of full sized tiles, for me it would jar on the eye. As it's on a raised base could you chisel out 2cm from either side? Or as the tiles are plain black could you source slightly different sized ones? If you have to do 2cm tiles though, you can get black tile trim to hide the edges.