Rough but common mistakes when grouting joints between tiles with your own hands.

The final stage of finishing works on laying tiles is grouting. At first glance, the procedure is quite simple.

All you need is to cover up the gaps between the tiles with a special compound.

But there are also some pitfalls here.

And mistakes made at this stage of work sometimes significantly affect not only for the attractive appearance of the tiles, but also reduce the service life of the coating in general (moisture penetrates into poorly processed seams).

It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.

Therefore, below we will consider the most common mistakes that are made when grouting with your own hands.

Mixing the grout mixture with a drill at high speeds.

The grout mixture must have homogeneous structure.

Only under this condition will it be possible to fill the joints with grout efficiently.

But often this condition is not given importance, and a mistake is made already at the stage of mixing.

The grout is mixed with a drill at high speeds.

In this case, the mixture is enriched with oxygen and air bubbles violate its homogeneity.

To avoid this and prepare the trowel correctly it is necessary to mix only at low speed (no more than 300 rpm) or manually.

The tile adhesive is not cleaned from the joints before grouting.

Another mistake is grouting joints over protruding excess tile adhesive.

Ideally, excess adhesive is removed from the tile joints during the tiling phase.

If this has not been done, then the remnants of glue must be cut off with a clerical knife.

Only under this condition will the trowel mixture fill the joint evenly and efficiently.

Using a hard tool.

Using a metal spatula is also a mistake.

Not only is he can damage the glazed surface of the tile, and it also will not allow you to fill the seam well with grout.

Therefore, for grouting, it is best to use soft rubber spatula.