How to lay Victorian Geometric Tiles

[benmc]

Hi All

When we bought our Church we were informed by the lady who originally converted it that the original tiles floor had been very damaged and was dug up and replaced with concrete!!

About 6 months ago I started work on this room in question and lifted the carpet. I was surprised to find a very small piece of tile showing through a thin concrete slurry. I have spent the last few months cleaning the 1mm layer of concrete slurry off the top of the tiles with brick acid. I am pleased to be able to say all is looking very good now.


Now coming onto my question.

There are 3 areas where I need to extend the existing pattern of tiles. I have found a suppler of the replacement tiles (http://www.cravendunnill-jackfield.co.uk/) not cheap but oh well.

Now to extend the pattern I need to dig out the existing floor and then relay.

My builder has started to dig the floor up and found the top inch of concrete comes up easily leaving a rough surface, 10mm up and down. Now I am wondering if it is possible to lay the tiles in a lime mortar, this would allow me to lay as originally laid and also take up the differences in levels without much trouble.

Any ideas?

Ben

 

[Penners]

Ben - this is a useless reply, because I have no experience whatsoever with encaustic (?) tiles. But congratulations on find them - they're great!

 

[benmc]

We are over the moon at the find. The only issue is the £4.5 cost of each replacement tile!!!

Ben

 

[Penners]

Gulp!

Wouldn't it be cheaper to make the room smaller? :wink:

 

[benmc]

Dont worry we only need 1000 tiles!

 

[Penners]

:shock:

 

[benmc]

Yes, exactly what we thought but we have no other option. No one else can match the existing tiles.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Have you REALLY scoured all the reclamation places? And ebay?

 

[benmc]

I have tried many reclamation yards, purchased samples etc but nothing matches. I will have to bite the bullet!

 

[Feltwell]

The tile museum at Jackfield, where the Craven Dunnill works is based, is just down the road from me. If you think that's expensive - I was eyeing up some beautiful 6-colour encaustic tiles for a hearth, until I found out they were £48 each! And that was without VAT! Oh well, maybe 1 or 2 as a feature would be nice.....

When you see what work goes into them then you understand why they're expensive. Ben, have you spoken to Craven Dunnill to get their advice? I found the chap there was very helpful, and they do lots of restoration work - there are some very impressive examples in the museum. If you fancied a short break then the tile museum is well worth a visit, and is one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums - you could easily spend a long weekend just going round them, there's 10 in total.

No, I don't work for the Shropshire tourist board!

 

[benmc]

Craven Dunnill have been very helpful with trying to match the exact colour etc. I am planning to take a trip up there soon to take a look around.

I spoke to them today and asked about laying the tiles in lime, they said it was possible but did not have much more to say on the matter. Think they try and stay away from detailed fitting advice, I can understand this.

I will give Mike Wye a call tomorrow morning and see what they say. If not I can level the humps and bumps with laytex and go from there

Ben

 

[Schoolmarm]

duplicate post :roll:

 

[Schoolmarm]

Found this;



ORIGINAL TILE LAYING

Most floors were laid to a very high standard, although on careful inspection, the odd mistake can usually be found. Grout lines are usually so fine that many people think these tiles were butted together. That was rarely the case, most floors were laid with a fine grout line to allow small dimensional differences.

Tiles were always laid in a wet mortar screed, and the skill of the tilers can be appreciated in the flatness and alignment of the tiles. Designs were normally set out centrally from the main entrance. Again, the skill of the tilers in setting out must also be recognised. The bedding screeds originally used were normally very hard. Some of the earlier floors (particularly in the Midlands) used a softer lime based screed, but after around 1880 almost all floors that have been encountered in the South East used a hard lime and Portland mix.

on here; http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/tiles/tiles.htm



It does continue by warning against hard cement though. 8)

 

[benmc]

Just spoken to Mike Wye and been advised to lay then in Natural Hydrolic Lime (NHL 5)

(http://www.heidelbergcement.com/NR/rdonlyres/9C8E11ED-A415-4D2D-A9B8-8C676D381B8E/0/Castle_cement_conservation_range.pdf)

Just doing some further investigation.

 

[benmc]

1 Bag of NHL5 arrives this afternoon.

So this weekend I will do a trial laying of a few tiles to see how it goes.

I also have a hold in the existing floor that needs to be filled and I will use the NHL5 + aggregates to fill that one.

Ben

 

[inwood]

Not an expert but tried to get the similar impossibly small grouts line myself when laying my kitchen floor. The method I used isn't recommended if you like your knees and back but I have heard of an old method of grouting the floors once it's laid:
Once the tiles are laid and stiff enough to grout the tiler would use a slurry of lime and pour this over the area to be grouted. As the grout dried the excess would be removed from the surface of tiles using sawdust - damp at first and then increasingly dry until at the end dry sawdust is used to buff the surface and remove all surface traces of the grout.

Not something I tried (didn't have the balls to do it after all the work in laying the tiles) and not something either that I could find any detailed info on.

Does anyone else know of this method, tried it or have detailed instructions on how to do it?

 

[garnett]

Hello

I have done a couple of grant aided restorations of these tiles. There is a cheapish way to do this and make it look right but you will need a trip to Exeter.

Have a look at Original Style web site http://www.originalstyle.com/tile_victorian.htm

I have no connection with them but if you use this product it will look too perfect compared to your tiles. They do however have a factory seconds shop at Exeter and the non perfect tiles are a quarter of the price of the perfects. I find that they look far more authentic in historic buildings.

The first time I laid them, the floor looked really flat. After laying it was obviously not and the grout lines vary slightly which I hate. I would always lay a leveling skim in furture to ensure accuracy.

Good Luck

Garnett

 

[garnett]

Hello

I have done a couple of grant aided restorations of these tiles. There is a cheapish way to do this and make it look right but you will need a trip to Exeter.

Have a look at Original Style web site http://www.originalstyle.com/tile_victorian.htm

I have no connection with them but if you use this product it will look too perfect compared to your tiles. They do however have a factory seconds shop at Exeter and the non perfect tiles are a quarter of the price of the perfects. I find that they look far more authentic in historic buildings.

The first time I laid them, the floor looked really flat. After laying it was obviously not and the grout lines vary slightly which I hate. I would always lay a leveling skim in furture to ensure accuracy. Here in South Devon cement is not a dirty word as our villas where built with it from the 1850s onwards. Some are listed because of this.

Good Luck

Garnett

 

[piper]

Here is another company (usual disclaimer)

http://www.originalfeatures.co.uk/tiles/tiles-introduction

I got a few samples from them about two years ago, planning to repair the broken edges of a patch of geometric tiling in our house (samples still not returned and job still not done, but I may live long enough).
They look very good, and the edges are hand-cut and square - essential for thin grout lines of course. At one time the Original Style range had slightly rounded edges and must have been pressed. They looked too modern, but that may have changed now.