Skip to main content

Outdoor Tile Expansion Joints for tiles and concrete slab - tiles on concrete slab - how to grout outdoor tiles

If there are joints in the concrete slab under the tile, there needs to be an expansion joint in the concrete slab, as well.


What Expansion Joints Are and Why You Should Use Them

Expansion joints are spaces between tiles that, instead of being filled with grout, are filled with a flexible sealant. The type of sealant (also called the "caulk" or "caulking") chosen must be weather-resistant. Moreover, if you expect to be subjecting your patio to a lot of traffic, you must select a sealant designed to hold up to foot traffic. Note that even indoor tiling projects require the use of these joints.

The elements can take their toll on pieces of tile used outdoors. These elements include direct sunlight, freezing temperatures, and snow and rain. All of these conditions can cause outdoor tile to move, and you need to allow room for it to do so. If the outdoor tile does not have room to move, it will make room. Grout will crack. Outdoor tiles will pop themselves up off the concrete slab. Entire installations can be ruined because of a lack of expansion joints.

Outdoor tile expansion joints are a small but necessary step when building an outdoor tile patio that you expect to last for many years.


Where to Place Outdoor Tile Expansion Joints 

Placement of expansion joints is very important. According to the Tile Council of North America, a body that helps set standards for tile installations, when installing outdoor tile, there must be an expansion joint every 8 feet to 12 feet, in each direction. It is recommended that you err on the side of caution and use the smaller measurement. So, for example, if your patio were 16 feet by 16 feet, you would have two expansion joints, each running down the middle of the patio and intersecting in the center. Instead of grouting these joints like all of the rest, you would fill these joints with caulk. You can buy caulk that matches the color of your grout at most home improvement stores.

If there are joints in the concrete slab under the tile, there needs to be an expansion joint in the concrete slab, as well. Otherwise, the movement that those joints allow in the slab could carry up into the tile and compromise your installation. Make a note of where your outdoor tile expansion joints will go when doing the patio layout.


The Caulk and Caulking Gun

Commonly used caulking materials for expansion joints are silicone and polyurethane. Do not confuse silicone with silicon. That latter is a chemical element. The former is a polymer (large molecule made up of numerous repeating subunits) comprised partly of silicon but also having carbon and hydrogen in it. Polyurethane is also a polymer; its units are held together by carbamate links. Of the two, however, silicone holds up better to sunlight.


https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-grout-tile-2132520



how to seal grout on porcelain tiles
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-to-seal-grout/

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

for loop in javascript - promise - .eslintrc for "for of"

the vast majority of cases  map ,  forEach ,  find  etc. can be used.  async function printFiles () { const files = await getFilePaths(); await Promise.all(files. map (async (file) => { const contents = await fs.readFile(file, 'utf8') console.log(contents) })); } const inventory = [ { name : 'apples' , quantity : 2 } , { name : 'bananas' , quantity : 0 } , { name : 'cherries' , quantity : 5 } ] ; const result = inventory . find ( ( { name } ) => name === 'cherries' ) ;   function getFirstMatching(array) { for (let item of array) { const result = heavyTransform(item); if (result) { return result; } } } Specifically this shuts down the whole no-restricted-syntax. If you want to cherry-pick, here is the current definition: 'no-restricted-syntax' : [ 'error' , { selector : 'ForInStatement' , message...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apollo client - cache APIs - auto update cache - erase cache - reactive variables - deletion - addition

Apollo Client 3  Local only fields Reactive Variables const cache = new InMemoryCache ( { typePolicies : { Todo : { // If one of the keyFields is an object with fields of its own, you can // include those nested keyFields by using a nested array of strings: keyFields : [ "date" , "user" , [ "email" ] ] , } } , } ) ; This internal data is intended to be easily  JSON-serializable , so you can take a snapshot with  cache.extract() , save it somewhere, and later restore with  cache.restore(snapshot) . Here’s a mutation called  EditTodo  that returns the new  todo  value in the mutation response. mutation EditTodo ( $id : Int ! , $text : String ! ) { editTodo ( id : $id , text : $text ) { success todo { # <- Returning it here id text completed } error { ... on TodoNotFoundError { message } ... on TodoValidationE...
Post a Comment
Read more

window.URL.createObjectURL is not (yet) available in jest-dom - testing scenario

Since  window.URL.createObjectURL  is not (yet) available in jest-dom, you need to provide a mock implementation for it. Don't forget to reset the mock implementation after each test. describe ( "your test suite" , () => { window . URL . createObjectURL = jest . fn (); afterEach (() => { window . URL . createObjectURL . mockReset (); }); it ( "your test case" , () => { expect ( true ). toBeTruthy (); }); });
Post a Comment
Read more