If you are installing a new floor in your home, slate tile flooring is a great option that you should consider. While you could have a professional grout your new floor, there is nothing stopping you from doing it yourself, whether you are interested in saving money, or simply enjoy doing your own work in your home. Grouting a slate tile floor, while a complex, multi-stage project, is something an amateur can do successfully with the right equipment and knowledge. The following instructions will help you grout your tile floor, and give you all of the information you need to make the finished grout as good as a professional would make it.
What You'll Need:
- Buckets
- Water
- Grout Mix
- Trowel
- Sponges
Step 1 - Setting Up
To begin, fill a bucket with water and put on your protective rubber gloves.
Once you have done this, you will need to mix the grout. Fill a second bucket with water, and mix the grout mixture powder in at the correct proportion. It will vary from brand to brand, but the manufacturer's instructions should clearly state how much powder and how much water to use. Once you have done this, use your trowel to evenly mix the powder and water. The end result should be a thick paste that does not run off of your trowel when you pick it up, but is not powdery either. If you need to adjust the proportions of powder and water to get the correct consistency, do so now.
Step 2 - Grouting the Tiles
Apply grout to your joints with your trowel. Hold the trowel at a 45-degree angle, and use it to simultaneously remove excess grout and push the grout into the joint. Go up and down each joint in both directions to ensure an accurate and complete job.
As you work, use your sponge to wipe up any grout that spills as quickly as you can, particularly if it is in the middle of a tile. This will save you a lot of work removing grout haze later. As dried grout is harder to remove than grout when it is wet, you cannot be too thorough at this stage.
Step 3 - Completing the Grout
Use a damp sponge to remove excess grout from the joints. To avoid spreading the excess grout across your tiles, use one side of the sponge to wipe along the joint. Once you have done this, only use the other side of the sponge, and only once. After both sides of your sponge have grout on them, rinse your sponge off and repeat the process until all joints have an appropriate amount of grout.
Step 4 - Finishing Up
Once all of the tiles are complete, you can go over the tiles one last time to remove any partially formed grout haze. By this point, any that has survived may be partially dry, or it may have worked its way into cracks or pores in the tiles, so you may have to scrub. Additionally, doing this may cause you to go through multiple sponges, so be sure to bring spares.
Source; www.DoItYourself.com
