Expert Answers in Ceramic and Porcelain Tile

ANSWER – Tile should never be installed over a composite board because they are water sensitive and relatively unstable. There are some applications where you can install over exterior grade plywood for interior applications, but…

ANSWER – Per our industry standards for ceramic tile and stone and from a practical point-of-view, any concrete substrate that has shrinkage cracks should be isolated with a crack isolation membrane.

If the cracks are…

ANSWER – Manufacturer’s of the installation products for ceramic tile and stone caution to not use propane heaters. The reason is because the propane heaters emit carbon dioxide that can lead to a condition called…

ANSWER – Unless you know what brand and type of coating is on the existing tile surface you can only experiment to determine what will chemically remove the coating.  There are various manufacturers that make…

ANSWER – There are ANSI A137.1 industry standards on quantifying what is considered acceptable dimension variation within standard grade ceramic tiles. Ceramic tile is not perfect and the installation methods help compensate for the imperfections…

ANSWER – Ceramic tile behind a woodstove works very well as long as it’s installed correctly over the right type of substrate. In the production process, ceramic tile is baked in huge ovens at 1200…

Answer – I assume the ceramic tile you have is a glazed ceramic tile (glass-like coating on the surface) that has crazing in the glaze surface (spider web-like look). Some glazes are softer and more fragile…

ANSWER – There are sealers called “enhancers” that will give natural stone and unglazed ceramic tiles a wet look or darker look.

Unglazed (through-body) Porcelain tile is considered impervious and does not absorb much, although…

ANSWER – I am not familiar with Zap Cleaner, but I did find a website for it that does not provide any product data on it. They just make claims but do not provide a…

ANSWER – The method used to remove ceramic tile depends on what it is attached to and what was used to attach it.

Normally ceramic tile is tenaciously attached and requires a lot of effort…