Tips to Put in Place Travertine Tiles

Travertine is an elegant choice for walls and floors in both indoor and outdoor applications. Travertine tiles are classic, timeless, and versatile, and they will surely transform any area that they are installed in. If you are planning to install your travertine floors yourself, here are a couple of tips that you can follow:

1. Gather your tools before you start to install the travertine tiles. The common tools that are used in tile installation are the following:

• Tape measure
• Power drill and mixing paddle
• Rubber Mallet
• Marker or wax pencil,
• A level
• A Torpedo level
• Tapping block
• Tile spacers
• Chalk line
• Notched trowel
• Margin trowel
• Wet Saw

Remember that the trowel’s size will depend on the mortar bed’s size that is needed for the tile size that you’re going to install.

1. Prepare the surface where you’ll be installing the travertine floors. The surface needs to be clean and flat. Any older floor covering must be removed, be it carpet, laminate, vinyl, or an older tile. Repair or replace the sub-floor and fix or cover cracks in concrete slabs.

2. Before installing your travertine floors, you need to lay them out first. Because travertine is a natural stone, it has plenty of variation. Before you put them in place, you need to blend them first so that the light pieces or the dark ones will not end up being grouped together – unless you’re really going for that look. Lay the travertine tiles out first and see how they’ll appear. It much easier to do that when individual pieces can still be rearranged.

3. See to it that the tiles and the substrate are completely dry before you start the installation. You can’t install wet travertine.

4. The travertine tiles need to be sealed. The most commonly used sealers are natural sealers and enhancing sealers. Enhancing sealers give the stone a ‘wet’ appearance, while natural sealers protect the stone without altering its look.