Services

We provide the highest quality Tiling Services to business and private clients throughout Devon and the South West of England. Though based centrally in Exeter, we work regularly in Plymouth and Bristol and often off the beaten track in more rural locations.

Bathrooms are amongst our most frequent requests. A normal sized bathroom typically take us 2 1/2 days to tile, walls and floor. We first rectify the walls to ensure that they are as true and flat as possible, particulary important when using thin glass mosaic tiles. Then we use a self-levelling laser to mark out the room, batons are then nailed to the walls to ensure all the grout lines are equal. We then apply a primer (either uni-bond or SBR) and then we're basically ready to tile the room. The floors only really differ depending on the sub strait: wood or concrete. Wooden floor do need more attention. We normally screw the thickest amount of plywood possible to the floor whilst using neat PVA between the two surfaces, this then becomes a laminate. Under floor heating can also be applied at this stage and the primer and flexible adhesive (normally BAL's fast flex) would be applied. This is expensive but it really does work! Concrete floors are much simpler. Normally uni-bond (or the like) is applied, we then self-level if required and tile the floor to the customer's design. You ,as the customer, have a huge choice of tiles and accessories available to you and each bathroom is very personal to the individual. The norm at the moment is to go for a larger profile tile laid on its side, to cut down on grout lines, giving the room a more European look. Aluminium seems to be very popular, as well as stainless steel; we use a lot of these products to trim off sharp external edges on the tiles.

Shower Rooms represent, probably, the simplest of our work. They can be just a shower base with two walls of tiles and a 90 degree shower screen, very simple. Obviously some have 3 or 4 walls and complicated wall jets, still nowhere the complexities of an all-out wet room. Many of the points for bathrooms still apply, such as larger profile tiles to cut down on the amount of grout. Shower rooms seem, though, to fail over time around the top of the shower tray; either the silicone has failed or, in time, settlement has occured. We ensure there is adequate support underneath the tray and with cheaper trays (which tend to flex) we add even more support. As another precaution, we always apply silicone behind the bottom row of tiles as well. This cures many of the problems and also gives the shower a far greater lifespan.

Wet Rooms are certainly more complicated, and time consuming, to make than a bath or shower room. The concept revolves around making a shower base out of the floor and making it all completely water tight. The falls in the room must be correct as well, everything must point towards the drain. We normally use an Impey Aqua deck, or the like, to form the shower base. These decks have the falls required built into them as well as a drain, they also come in many sizes and drain positions. Once this is fitted we tank the room with either: Porcelanosa's Imperbrand fabric waterproof sheet (which is installed using tile adhesive), or Impey's self adhesion system. Our preferred system is Impey's because you can get straight back to it, unlike Imperbrand, where you have to wait for the tile adhesive to cure. The tanking is only taken floor to ceiling around the shower tray, plus 300mm either side. The next step is to seal and edge the corners, Impey supply a putty based sealer for this. Following that we tile the room, the shower tray is the only difference here and we normally tile this with mosaics... these flow really well with the falls of the tray. Mosaics up to 50mm square work the best, examples of these can be seen in the gallery.

Steam Rooms differ from saunas because the steam is piped in, rather than being generated in the room. Saunas also develop a dry hot atmosphere, where a steam room creates a wet hot atmosphere. The construction of a steam room is very important, the ceiling must be curved to allow the rising hot air to roll back down the walls... rather than dripping on the occupants below.

Kitchens are often our most visually satisfying. A normal size kitchen has between 4 and 6 square metres of tiles. We normally tile between the worktops and top cupboards and up to the top of the extractor fitted ubove the cooker. We feel the best size of tile is the 100mm x 100mm, it seems to work really well... opening up the area between the worktops and cupboads with the grout lines. There are many different types of tiles for kitchens; Ceramic is definitely the most popular, with porcelain being used as well. Natural stone is a poor choice in this environment, with the threat of hot oil frm cooking being thrown against it. Obviously the natural stone requires sealing (as it would in any case) but it should also be waxed to prevent the ingress of grease. It would be prudent to install stainless steel splash-backs to 'heavy use' areas.

Natural Stone Floor Refurbishment... Restoring your existing floors to their former glory.

Swimming Pools come in a variety of types. There are those where the water sits well below the top and the horizon (or top deck) pools where the water sits right at the top. If you look in one of our galleries you will see a horizon pool that I tiled myself. The most critical part of the construction is the level around the top, it must be spot on. The most tedious part is grouting the pool, the example in the gallery took 8 straight days with epoxy grout... mind you, there were over 300,000 glass mosaic tiles in it!

A selection of our work can be seen in the Gallery

Area Covered: Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Avon.
Exeter, Plymouth, Bristol, Truro, Taunton