If you're curious about tile installation certification and the benefits it offers homeowners, specifiers as well as tile installers, you'll want to watch "Certification in Action," a 6-minute video embedded at the end of this article.
The video answers questions such as:
You've surely been in the position as a tile installer to deal with jobsite conditions that require the substrate (floors and walls) to be patched making it “tile ready”. No question, it's critical to get the substrate flat enough to accommodate tile. This is particularly true if the tile is large format.
If you've been installing tile for a while, you've certainly encountered situations where you were asked about tiling over an existing tile installation rather than taking up the tile and/or underlayment and starting from fresh. How did you respond?
Here are two situations Mark Heinlein CTI #1112 and National Tile Contractors Association
Training Director to help explore possible responses.
Have you looked at the photos in this article and noticed a real problem? They all demonstrate low grout joints which do not meet the tile industry standards. To meet these standards, the grout must adequately fill the space which obviously these examples do not.
And yet, when the person who took these photos shared them with his builder on the job site, the builder did not believe that any standards existed or that there were any organizations that develop them.
Have you found yourself in a similar situation?
If yes, here's how to deal with low grout joints and understand tile installation standards.
How do you prove yourself as a tile installation professional? For John Mourelatos CTI #1290, it involves becoming a Certified Tile Installer (CTI). John is next in the CTEF Blog series about Qualified Labor based on articles in TileLetter.com published in April 2017 and May 2015.
In anticipation of Coverings 2019, WhyTile has released a series of videos in support of Qualified Labor. Since it's such an important subject, we're recapturing the videos here and including relevant references from articles we've published.
We look forward to seeing you at Coverings!
Just in time for Coverings, we've created the Tile Installer Credo which consists of ten core tile installation beliefs.
If you've been following this blog, you're probably familiar with them as these are principles we don't take lightly. These beliefs keep us up at night; they motivate us to be active in the tile industry and seek out every opportunity to make believers of all those who still doubt and don't follow the industry standards and best practices for installing tile.
Here they are. Will you help us get the word out?
When it comes to successfully completing kitchen and bath installations, Qualified Labor matters. It helps ensure that the tile installation will perform as expected and look as designed for years to come in spaces that demand a great deal from proper performance.
Given how demanding these spaces are, there's tremendous benefit to ensuring that designers and installers collaborate as Dan Hecox showed us in Dan Hecox Inspires Designers, Tile Installers to Aspire to Higher Standards. The more designers understand the requirements of tile installations that perform and the better tile installers communicate with designers, the more likely success is all around.
For that reason, CTEF is pleased to collaborate with the National Kitchen + Bath Association (NKBA) as a sponsor of the April 2019 weekly webinar series.
If you're wondering whether it's better to install tile under cabinets or not, the answer is... it depends. It depends on the structure of your home as well as your kitchen and its subfloor, the materials selected and your own preference.
Inspiring those around him to aspire to higher tile standards seems second-nature to Dan Hecox, founder of Hecox Construction in York, Nebraska. That's what he does as NTCA Nebraska State Ambassador and as a Regional Evaluator for the Certified Tile Installer Program.
Dan Hecox CTI #1215 is next in the CTEF Blog series about Qualified Labor based on several articles in TileLetter.com. More specifically,
>> Dan Hecox Presents to A&D Students at University of Nebraska – Lincoln
>> Member Spotlight – Hecox Construction, Inc.
>> Qualified Labor – January 2018 – Sark Tile Supports Education by Hosting NTCA Workshop and CTI Exam
>> NTCA Nebraska State Ambassador establishes local CTI testing
Certified Tile Installer Mike Corona says,
You don't become a tile installer or a business owner overnight. It takes time, enthusiasm, pride, reliability, respectfulness, a willingness to learn, and dedication. No two jobs are the same; each one has its own unique nuances. As a qualified installer, you need to be able to communicate how to deal with those nuances and qualify yourself to not only meet but exceed expectations. Being qualified will exponentially increase your value and you will have endless opportunities.
Mike Corona CTI #923 Corona Marble and Tile
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The Ceramic Tile Education Foundation (CTEF) provides education and installer certification for professionals working in the ceramic tile and stone industry.
The CTEF Certified Tile Installer (CTI) program is the only third-party assessment of installer skill and knowledge which is recognized by the tile industry.
