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Vent: the guy at the Albany tile shop flipped my whole grout plan on a Tuesday demo
I stopped by a tile shop in Albany last Tuesday to grab a cheap notched trowel and stayed for their evening demo on back buttering. The guy running it, Ray, had been setting tile for 26 years, and he showed us how a 1/4 inch notch only gets you about 80 percent coverage on a 12x24 unless you back butter too. He pulled up a tile he had set dry on purpose and you could see the corners were basically floating with no thinset touching them. I went home and re-did two rows in my bathroom that I had already set, and sure enough the corners popped right off. Has anyone else had a shop demo send them back to fix work they thought was done?
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noahwood8d ago
I watched this guy on YouTube, TileCoach I think, do a cutaway test with 12x24s and a 1/4 inch notch, and the coverage was straight up sad. Like 60 percent in the middle and nothing in the corners, same thing Ray showed you. He said the notch size has to match the tile, so big tile needs a bigger trowel or you back butter, one or the other. That video is why I back butter everything now, even 12x12s, it takes an extra minute per tile but I'm not ripping out floors later. Good on you for catching those two rows before the thinset fully set, that could've been a much worse Tuesday.
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