Mixing flooring materials — ranging from carpet to vinyl hardwood to carpet, and tile to wood — is frequently done in modern residences. Tile and wood work well together, and the overall installation methods don’t change when combining both. The only differences relate to height and also making the transition from one material to the other, and you will find an assortment of ways to tie these two flooring components together.
Order of Installation
If you ask 100 installers, you will get 100 different answers as to whether you need to put in the tile or the timber first. The solution is that it’s completely up to personal preference. Whether the end result is a flushed out setup or two different finish heights, numerous protocols for both flooring stuff let you attain your desired finish results. One consideration is that timber is easier to install compared to tile. Also, once tile is down in concrete and setup, it’s there to remain, whilst hardwood might be set up in floating format and also corrected more easily.
Underlayment
Both substances benefit from floor underlayment, but with tile it’s a requirement when you’re installing a wooden subfloor. Fiberboard or concrete board is a must, and 1/4-inch depth is that the standard used on flooring. The underlayment is set up in a bed of mortar applied with a 1/4-inch notched trowel. After the board settles into the mortar and is nailed down, the finish depth of the thinset bed ought to be around 1/8 inch. This increases the overall depth of the tile installation. Use 1/2-inch board should you will need to build tile up even farther to match a wood surface. With timber, underlayment isn’t necessary but you can use thin sheets of plywood to bring a small height should you have to match the tile.
Trowel Depth
When installing tile after wood, you can always utilize a heavier notched trowel either to install the tile itself or the underlayment for the tile. There’s no such thing as too much mortar, though excess may bleed up through the joints, impairing the grouting process. For best results, use a notched trowel that’s 1/8 or 1/4 inch bigger than what the manufacturer recommends for a specific tile dimension. This offers you an additional 1/8 inch or more of cushioning to help flush out tile to your wood floor.
Padding
Wood floors installed after a tile floor might need a small boost in height. They’ll benefit from cushioning in addition to plywood underlayment. Padding adds everywhere from 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch of height to your hardwood floor, based on the type you use. Moreover, padding also works as a sound buffer for hardwood flooring, stopping potential squeaking from wood-on-wood movement from occurring. The only downside is that at a high traffic area the cushioning compacts with time, leaving your hardwood floors marginally lower than the tile.
Transition Strips
Transition strips supply you with the sole solution for tile-to-wood transitions that cannot flush out. The assortment of styles includes strips installed under the border of the tile, and reducer strips that create a ramp from one substance to another. Another common style is that the T-strip, which has a vertical section which slips in between a slight gap left behind between the two surfaces. It is glued in place and the flat region of the strip covers both different finish materials.