How2Day: Ceramic Tile Setting Tools

An assortment of trowels are used in tile setting to apply adhesive Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
Setting your own ceramic tile flooring down will save you an enormous amount of money that would have otherwise gone to a professional contractor.

Assuming that your tiles are cut and ready to set, the majority of the tools you'll need for the job will be variations on a basic trowel, used for applying mortar and adhesive. Some of these trowels are designed for a specific application purpose, while some are more generalized and multipurpose.

Notched trowels are used to spread adhesive evenly across the surface of your subfloor. Only two of the four sides on a notched trowel are actually notched, and these notches are either V or square-shaped. A square notched trowel is used for applying thinset--a type of mortar specifically formulated to attach tile to surfaces--on surfaces that are horizontal. V-notched trowels are used to apply thinset to vertical surfaces.

Different notched trowels have different notch depths. The depth of the notches in your notched trowel should be two-thirds the thickness of the ceramic tile you're setting.

Grout floats are a type of trowel used to firmly press grout into the spaces or joints between freshly set tiles. The structure of a groat float is different than that of a typical metal trowel, in that the face of a grout float is made of foam or rubber.

In order to press grout into tile spacings with this type of trowel, you need to move the grout float back and forth over the tile spacing in a diagonal movement. The side of a grout float has a straight edge which is used to remove excess grout from the area you're working.

The margin trowel is a simple, rectangular-shaped metal trowel with a wooden handle, and is a multipurpose tile setting tool. It's used not only for mixing mortars and other assorted tile adhesives, but also for removing extra tile adhesive off of work surfaces. It also is used to move mortar and adhesive from your mixing bucket to your notched trowel, and to apply mortar and adhesive to the back of smaller tiles before setting.

Though not a mortar application tool, a level is a valuable tool that can be periodically used in the course of tile setting. It's an especially important tool if the floor on which you're setting tile is uneven, as is often the case in older homes which have settled disproportionately on their foundations over time. For only the very slightest floor dips, a bit of extra mortar placed into the dip can often bring the tile placed over it level to the surrounding tiles.

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