How much space should I leave between tiles?
When laying wall or floor tiles, it’s important to leave the right amount of space around each tile. The amount of space to be left is partially down to your preference, but we are able to offer some guidelines.
After picking out your tiles, you will need to also make sure you have all the other materials to complete your job.
You may wish to purchase tile spacers, these are small plastic plus signs or T shapes.
Spacers are extremely easy to use and are available in sizes from 1mm to 5mm. Place them between the tiles are you lay each one and grout straight over the top. These can be left in place and will not be seen when you have completed your tiling.
- For smaller tiles is advisable to use small spacers.
- As the tiles increase in size a larger gap becomes acceptable.
- The large format 18 inch tiles can have 5mm space in between.
Current trends are moving towards leaving much smaller grout lines between tiles. The overall finish of your job really does depend on your own personal style.
Before you begin to fix your tiles in place, it’s a good idea to lay a section out with spacers between to gauge an idea of the end result.
Decide if the space you have chosen looks correct with the proportions of your room. You may want to try two or three different size spacers before deciding.
When laying out your tiles, if you discover you are left with less than half a tile gap at the edge, we would suggest that you leave a slightly larger or smaller gap to use as many full tiles as possible.
Visit our tile fixing section now, for a great range of products to suit all tiling projects.
Article by Mike Lovatt
Here at Atlas Ceramics we import and distribute high quality products to support the tiling industry. These products include Polished tiles, Matt tiles or Satin tiles for the wall and floor, ceramic and porcelain tiles, natural stone and mosaics, from Italy, Portugal, and Spain.