Sorry to take so long... I was tiling!
Costs
Guys always come up with great stories about getting tile so cheap, it was like having them pay you to take it!. Great if you can find such a deal but, even guys putting down good quality ceramic tiles are paying close to a buck a sq/ft. Porcelain is harder and a little more expensive. If you are doing a smaller space, obviously you can probably handle a small increase on the tile price. Figure $1.00-$1.50 per sq/ft for tile. I paid $2 because it was the exact color match and it wasn't too slippery when wet. I took a piece home and bashed the hell out of it to make sure it was good quality. Do the same. Wet it and wiggle around on it. If it is slick as snot, consider another tile.
There is a little more to consider than just the tile price.
(I used Custom tile products for this job. There are other products used by many of the pros and they cost quite a bit more than the HD Custom products. That said, I had to order my mortar off HD online as they don't carry this product in the stores.)
The mortar that glues down your tile is another cost variable. If you go with large format tiles with an edge dimension longer than 14 inches, you will need to use a medium bed mortar product. This is a mortar that can go on up to 1/2 inch thick to help even out concrete undulations over the longer tile dimension. A cheap bed of thin set runs about $10 a bag of mortar. Medium bed runs around $17 a bag. Medium set with some ability to flex runs $42 (all HD prices). Different mortars cover different areas. Check the bag. Your coverage may vary.
So if cost is the main driver, go small format tiles like 12x12 or 14x14 and you can get away with cheaper thinset. The bonding strength with plain Custom thinset cheapo mortar is incredible if you mix it right. (Mix... WAIT... Mix again.) My work time with the Megalite medium bed was over an hour by mixing half a bag at a time.
Tool Costs
The basic hand tools for laying tile can be purchased for under $40. A good stainless notch trowel in the right size for your mortar bed (thinset 1/4" notch and medium bed 1/2" notch) along with a 2" square mortar trowel are the main tools you will use. To pull or adjust a tile I use a 1/4" tuckpointing tool or a small pointy trowel to get under the edges or clean out grout lines. These tools run under $10 apiece. Buy good ones and keep them clean between jobs with a little WD40 and they will last a lifetime. You can even sell them on CraigsList when you are done. Masonry tools command a high price on the secondary market.
I rented a 7" grinder to take off the high spots along my expansion joints as well as a vacuum, to **** up the dust. The diamond bit for that ran $90 and the two machines for two partial days ran about $90.
The biggest cost will be a saw. There are lots of cheap saws out there that will get the job done but I bought a used saw from the rental department at Home Depot. Its an MK 101 that retails for just under $1000. I paid $225 for it and after a bath of WD40, it looked almost brand new. I did a tile shower with it first off, and after it sat for 8 years, I am doing about 2200 sq/ft of flooring, and at that point, the thing has more than paid for itself. But, I could probably sell it for $300 and make some money! I like having the ability to cut tile and I will probably keep the machine around a few more years. Only negative is the piggy weighs almost 100 lbs on the frame. I am 60 now and can move it around fine. In ten years that might be a problem.
You can rent these saws and it you have no other way to cut I would highly recommend using a wet saw. Dry saws eat up blades and put off dust that is not good for you.
If you are just doing your garage, rental is the way to go. Lay all your full tiles and get as close as you can to obstacles/walls/etc. Then rent a saw and cut all your "fill-in" tiles. You can easily do that in one day after you take the saw back. Glue 'em down the next day and you are done. Even at two -day rental, you are talking $100 for a nice machine that does a really nice job.
Most rental saws come with 10" blades. I bought a new RIGID blade for $40 and it has cut my porcelain very nicely. I should finish the 1150 sq/ft job on that blade and still have life on it.
Buy some smaller buckets for mortar mixing. HD sells shorter black bucket that are a really good size for 1/2 a bag of mortar. You'll need a heavy-duty drill (Harbor Freight) and a good mixing bit. I used a mortar mixer that had four square hoops welded together on a pole about 30" long (about $13 on Amazon). That kept the drill out of the goop and the mixing was easy and quick. While you are at HF, grab a couple small wheeled moving carts to stack your tile on. Makes life so much easier ($9 each with a coupon).
Grout comes in a huge array of colors and my 1150 sq/ft took all of 3 bags so its relatively inexpensive. Grout additive that makes it permanently stain resistant runs about $35 a bottle. What
is expensive is the color matched grout caulk for the expansion joint cracks. This runs about $8 a tube.
All-up, I figure with my higher priced porcelain tile and my higher end mortar and expansive caulk areas,
I'll be looking at $3.25 a sq/ft installed for my project.
Floor Prep
Tiling is labor intensive. Unlike liquid coating which require loads of care before application, tile mortar sticks to clean concrete really well. In fact, the rougher the surface, the better the bond. So, while you'll spend more time on your knees laying tiles, your prep time is pretty short.
Oil Spots
My workshop had two oil stains where a couple of cans leaked until they were dry and then the stains sat for about five years. I can't think of a worse stain. The concrete was saturated. I hit it dry with concentrated citrus cleaner and after that soaked in, I hosed it and scrubbed it with a stainless brush. I did that about eight times and then put RedGuard over the stain and it literally stuck like glue. Two days later, I could not get the RedGuard to peel away using my trowel. A 3 gallon tub of RedGuard is $90 but it is pretty valuable stuff and goes a long way.
Cracks
RedGuard is what tilers use to water seal concrete board in showers. Two coats make the surface totally water resistant. Over cracks of 1/8" or less, RedGuard makes a great isolation membrane for tile in just one coat. That allows the tiles to "wiggle" a little if the floor moves under expansion and contraction. If your cracks are larger than 1/8" it may be a sign of heaving or other slab movement. You may not want to tile that floor. If your slab is older and relatively stable with the usual shrinkage cracks of 1/8" or less in the body of the floor panels with minor cracking inside the crack joints, go for it. If you are still engineering your location and can forget the crack joints and just cut the expansion cracks into the floor nice and straight, all the better.
Honor The Crack Joints!
If you tile, you should have a tile gap, filled with flexible caulking, within an inch of that crack joint. This allows the concrete panels to contract and expand during the year without breaking tiles. And, if you have small cracks, you need the RedGuard within 2 tile widths of the crack to isolate both tiles adjacent to the cracks. I didn't do it but, you could also RedGuard adjacent to crack joints to allow those edge tiles a little more freedom along that expansion joint.
Install time
Tiling is pretty physically demanding. The boxes of tile are around 70-90 lbs each. Its great exercise if you can do it and you'll feel great afterwards for having gotten some exercise. You are on your knees most of the time so that is a consideration for folks with knee or hip issues. I am 59.5 and feel pretty lucky to be motoring along with this level of "labor."
In the cool Spring, I was banging off 8 hour days to the project. Now, with summer here, I find I have to cut tiles and that requires having set tiles to measure against. That complication means I am working 4-hour days now and getting roughly 100 sq/ft laid in a day. I am in no rush and find I actually enjoy the process. I started my first tile row about four weeks ago and have covered about 700+ square feet, working a few hours in the morning, usually four days a week. This includes taking a week off after grouting the half of the garage to move all my stuff on to the tile side to do the other half. I am not the fastest and I am probably not the slowest tiler.
Install Method
Do it yourself or hire it done. Buying tools and renting tools adds to your install costs but paying to have it done is $3.25-$5.00 per sq/ft. In my case, that would have added close to $7000 to the project. I have the time so I did the install. That choice is yours alone to make whether you go tile or liquid finish.
Reached the word limit!!! More on next post!
