How To Properly Use Tile Spacers

A customer who bought tile spacers from one home depot shop came back and said that the tile spacers are of no use to him and he cannot get the tiles align accurately. The customer service manager came and assisted his concern. After listening, they were able to figure out that he is using a wrong size of the tile spacers…

One common problem of beginners or DIYers is the lack of knowledge about a specific tool or thing that he might be using. The purpose of this article is to give you helpful tips about how you can properly use the tile spacers in your project.

If you have been doing tile installation in the past, you  will remember the tools that you use to keep the spacing even when laying out your tiles- tape measure, ruler, strings, chalk, or straightedge. Nowadays, tile spacers are used by professional tilers, and most especially beginners or DIYers to get that excellent and perfect finish of their tiling and home improvement projects!

If you want to have grout lines that have  the same width and tiles that line up at the corners, you need to use tile spacers. A tile of small and large format may have or may not have nubs or built-in spacers. But even if you have bought or decided to use one with a nub, you can still opt to use tile spacers for ease and convenience.

The 3 Stages

Tile spacers provide numerous advantages on your wall or floor tiling installation. Since tiles have slight variations in sizes, spacers can aid in giving your tiling work a professional touch! It will assist effectively when you are making patterns,  and variety of designs and styles.

Basically, there are 3 stages where the tile spacers are part of the installation. Let’s describe each stage below:

Testing Stage:

A trial run  is important before the final installation so you can check and adjust on your designs. If you will use a consistent space for all tile joints, you will only need one size of tile spacers. But if you are trying to achieve a pattern, you might want to get different sizes based on your chosen design.

Also, do note that all walls and floors are subject to some movements. Thus, we recommend that when you choose tile spacers for walls, do not choose 2mm below and for floors, 3mm.

Do the test from the CENTER of the room. Check the other areas that have unusual size or curves. This can affect the overall look if you do not manage to measure the difference. You can use two types of spacers here, the cross or plus-shaped spacers for the four edges, and the T-spacers when it hits a flat end or surface. If you have plenty of the cross-shaped tile spacer,  just break one corner of the cross spacer to turn it to a T-shape.

Lay-out Stage:

On this stage, you install all your tiles using the spacers. What the spacers do is give even spaces to your tiles and if you use the leveling system, to level the tiles accurately to avoid lippage. Lippage means vertical displacement of two adjacent tiles. When there is lippage in your tile flooring, it can lead to several problems like increase in danger or safety measure obstacles and unpleasant finish due to chipped edges in your tiles.  Depending on the floor or wall issues that you may have discovered while on the testing stage, you can decide whether you’ll use tile spacers or leveling system; or you may use both!

Tile spacers work both on floors and walls. The following are the quick and easy steps you can follow to use them in your lay-out phase:

1. Start the layout on the center of the room where you marked your first grid line. Make sure you’ve marked your gridline using a chalk or marker.

2. On the marked grid line, lay your first tile and in each corner of the tile, put a tile spacer.  There are two ways you can use them:

Way 1- Putting on the corners: This is the typical way of using the tile spacers.  This is the recommended way and what you’ll see in most product  manuals.

Way 2:  Putting on top around the edges: You can do it this way if you want to re-use your tile spacers. This is because you can avoid the tile spacers to get stuck when the sealant dries and sets. Professional or experienced tilers do this often because they can align the corners easily.

3. As you go one with the next tiles, put the tile spacers on all four corners to make uniform spaces. You can repeat the same process until the last tile you will install. Once done, you will see how beautiful and even the spaces are!

Removing Stage:

As soon as all the tiles have been placed onto the floor or walls, you should get a timer and wait for the adhesive seal. Check the sealer’s manual or instruction because not all sealers have the same hold or waiting time. Most would suggest waiting for 20 to 30 minutes, or 30 to 40 minutes. To be sure, remove the tile spacers 5 minutes before the hold time expires. As others would safely suggest, keep a small  allowance for the drying-time stated. Removal can be done by pulling them off using your hands or other tools like utility knife, pliers, etc. After removing them, the next step is grouting the joints.

Now, let’s discuss how to use the tile spacers accurately. There are different ways to use it depending on where you’re laying out the tiles so we will give you some basic steps and guide like the following:

1. Using Tile Spacers When Tiling the Toilet Floors or Walls

The major problem in toilet or bathroom is leakage. Since there’s only a small joint or sometimes joint-free tiling required in the installation, the question whether tile spacers are still needed is now a concern. When you use  a small grout line, it may be very hard to seal the joints or put in the spacers.

It is never a problem when you want to use large tiles with the standard spacing. But how do you properly use the tile spacers in the toilet flooring when you have small tiles?

Use the smallest size of tile spacer if you are working on a small joint. Having a small joint instead of joint-free will allow you to make adjustment when a damage is seen after laying out the tiles. This will make you see even some defects on tiles that would later on cause problems. The spacers will make consistent pattern and spacing to your small tiles. You can opt for a leave-in tile spacer if you worry of removing them. You can grout them over but make sure you will pick a high-quality leave-in spacers.

Want some extra tips?

Tip #1: Put a cement board if you want to have a sturdy and level surface when you attach the bathroom tiles!

Tip #2:When you are setting the tiles on the wall, you may use a starter board for a vertical-pattern. This will ensure straight and level installation. When you apply the thinset, it is best to use a notched trowel because it will hold the tiles better. You can use a tile leveler or spacers to hold the tiles in place and make it straight.

      2. Using Tile Spacers When Tiling Around the Bath Tub

Some bathroom tiles have small nubs on the edges because it serves as guide when you are not using tile spacers. However, if you think these nubs do not do its job to have even spacing or find it difficult to set the grout width uniformly, this is when you use the tile spacers.

A tile with a built-in spacer looks like this photo below:

Basically,  when getting the right spacers when tiling around a bath tub, you have to take note of the tile’s size. If you wish to install different sizes of tiles around the tub, get the appropriate size for the floor and wall. Here is a very helpful diagram from This Old House

      3. Tile Spacers When Using Marble Tiles

Marble tiles will look lovelier when they are installed uniformly! According to some tilers, even if the tiles already have built-in spacers, they still choose to get the right tile spacers to ensure even grout lines. The plastic tile spacers are placed in between marble tiles to set an even width when you do the grout work later on.

      4. Tile Spacers on Wood-Like Tiles

In the video shared by Lowe’s, a tavy tile spacer is used when installing wood like tiles. Using this type of spacer is best for this kind of tile because it is easier to grip and place properly. They work perfectly on thin tiles.

Don’t worry because these tile spacers also work with marble, granite, porcelain, and large-format tiles. They can align your tiles while providing accurate similar spaces. Most of all, they are reusable so you can save and keep them for future use.

      5. Tile Spacers Sizes

Perhaps you know that the grout joint sizes matters when choosing tile spacer sizes. To give you an overview of how the tile spacer sizes would look like in an actual installation.

Summary:

As we near the end, we’d like to summarize the main points learned in this article:

• Tile spacers have different sizes so you can use them appropriately for proper spacing of your grout joint.
• The right size of grout line for a specific type of tile is necessary to complete a tiling job beautifully. It will not only ensure even spaces, but it will also protect the floor or wall tiles from breakage and damage. A tile spacer is the perfect tool to achieve this goal!
• Before buying tile spacers, consider the type of tile that you will use. Are they rectified tiles? Are they hand-made tiles? Not all tiles are equally made, some may have slight variations.
• The minimum grout line is 1/16 inches. Tiles have gauge or thickness. When choosing a tile spacer, you need to get the ones that would match these factors.
• Taking out the tie spacers properly before you grout the joint is VERY IMPORTANT. You may have heard the term “ghosting” where the tile spacers show off after some time. It is inevitable for the grout to crack on some corners a year or even a few months after your installation  and you’ll be surprised to see some tile spacers underneath!
• Tile spacers are made of rubber or plastic materials which makes it hard to bond with the thinset or to the grout that covers them. In one of our articles, we explained everything you need to know about the leave-in tile spacers vs. take-out tile spacers. You can check it in this link _________________________ (please add the link).
• Lastly, take note of the 3 important stages where tile spacers take the role. In pre-installation or testing stage, you lay out the tiles and use spacers to get an idea of how your tiles will look like in general. The next stage is the Lay-out stage where you execute the tiling job and using the right spacers to complete the job.  Finally, the removing stage where you pull off the tile spacers before grouting; keeping those that can still be re-used. Never mind this step if you decide to use leave-in tile spacers!