Has anyone just put regular kitchen/bathroom tile on a garage floor? I am talking about ceramic tile. I see it selling pretty cheap at Menards and I was wondering if it would hold the weight of a car without breaking. Opinions?
Ceramic Tile garage flooring:
- Thread starter Ed Litsch
- Start date
BRIANBB
Well-known member
Lots of posts on this. Installed properly it is as good as anything else. The depot sells tile .60 a square foot. Check out the 12 gauge garage thread, Jack did his in this tile.
Yep.
I installed .59/ea 12"x12" ceramic tiles because I didn't know better and my 85-year-old concrete was not suitable for epoxy. I've had the tile for over five years now, and it's been awesome.
But wait, some people will say, I took some tiles out of a kitchen or bathroom once, and they were easy to crack. Well, the key is how the tiles are installed. You need to use thinset much more extensively (and consistently) in this kind of application. I 'double-buttered' the tiles, which means thinset was applied to both the concrete and the backs of the tiles themselves. When there are no voids underneath them, the tiles are (in many ways) stronger than the concrete they are sitting on. Here's a video clip of me hitting my tiles with a 4-lb sledge hammer. Notice how the camera jumps from the impacts.
If you live in an area with freeze/thaw cycles, then my experience might not directly translate for what you need. I'm in southern California. But I used the basic thinset and a dark-colored grout. Oil, grease and paint wipe off the stuff with a paper towel. I use jacks and jack stands all the time. I drop tools, too. Because I'm not perfect. But you wouldn't know that from the level of cleanliness in this picture.
I installed .59/ea 12"x12" ceramic tiles because I didn't know better and my 85-year-old concrete was not suitable for epoxy. I've had the tile for over five years now, and it's been awesome.
But wait, some people will say, I took some tiles out of a kitchen or bathroom once, and they were easy to crack. Well, the key is how the tiles are installed. You need to use thinset much more extensively (and consistently) in this kind of application. I 'double-buttered' the tiles, which means thinset was applied to both the concrete and the backs of the tiles themselves. When there are no voids underneath them, the tiles are (in many ways) stronger than the concrete they are sitting on. Here's a video clip of me hitting my tiles with a 4-lb sledge hammer. Notice how the camera jumps from the impacts.
If you live in an area with freeze/thaw cycles, then my experience might not directly translate for what you need. I'm in southern California. But I used the basic thinset and a dark-colored grout. Oil, grease and paint wipe off the stuff with a paper towel. I use jacks and jack stands all the time. I drop tools, too. Because I'm not perfect. But you wouldn't know that from the level of cleanliness in this picture.