# too much mortar or too little



## woodworkbykirk (Sep 17, 2008)

so tonight i started laying tile in my front entrance with my brother, im a carpenter hes a physiotherapist..... 

got starts barking at me your using too much mortar. it was coming into the grout lines after patting it down to make sure its got grab. argument being do you just set it onto the mortar or patt it to ensure even coverage and so it grabs then deal with raking out the excess mortar the next day? claims his book from the 70's says you should never have to clean out excess mortar seams before grouting, every tiler ive ever seen lay tile always cleans out..

its like glue on wood never enough glue, make sure it holds


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## cleveman (Dec 28, 2007)

what does a physiotherapist do besides lay tile?


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## PrecisionFloors (Jan 24, 2006)

Proper coverage will be determined by the size of the trowel notch relative to the size of the tile, not by you "patting" it down. If you have to beat the tile into the mortar to get coverage, your notch is too small. As far as cleaning grout joints of excess mortar is concerned, I very rarely have to do that on floor tile. That has more to do with technique than anything though. I would bet dollars to a donuts you are mixing your mortar too loose and then dropping the tiles into position close to the space you are using. That is why you are getting excessive amounts of squeeze out. Try dropping the tile in butted up to the two adjacent tiles and sliding them out to the proper grout spacing. This will almost guarantee the joints stay clean.


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## pgc555 (Aug 22, 2009)

Precision is right. Too wet of thin-set, wrong notched trowel. Make sure you
comb the thin-set in one direction and then set the tile and push and pull perpendicular to the trowel ridges. This will let air escape and insure coverage to the back of the tile. You shouldn't have to "beat" the tiles into the thin-set.


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## woodworkbykirk (Sep 17, 2008)

thanks for the info guys, first time laying tile, good thing is its only a 4 x 9 room so well see if it stays down


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## coveinspiration (Jul 6, 2009)

What size of a notch are using?


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