CTEF Blog - About Tile Education and Installer Certification

When you cut tile for an installation project, do you spend much time thinking about how you manage time?

If you're a professional, chances are that you constantly think about how to manage your time - aka time management. After all, your time is money.

How well you use that time affects how long it takes you to complete tile installations, the quality of your work, and how many client projects you can commit to.

This is true even when you cut tile.

CTEF has evolved the Certified Tile Installer (CTI) hands-on test with a transition from bullnose to metal transition profiles. In this article, I'll share perspective on the change as, by now, you may have seen and heard about it.

Do you build a tile installation mockup for your customers? If you don't, we strongly encourage you to consider doing so.

Here's why.

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.

Yes, credit card joints - as in grout joints the thickness of a credit card - are popular, but given tile industry standards, they aren't possible, appropriate, or even recommended.

Many installers have had customers who have seen tile installations in a magazine or brochure which is exactly what they want in their homes. Unfortunately, the “look” they want to achieve with credit card thickness grout joints most likely will not be possible using the tile that has been selected.

Let's explore why.

Are you ready to take the CTI Hands-on Test at TISE24? If yes, you are in for a treat thanks to TEC!

Do You Know About the '100 in 100'?

It's a wonderful program that the Floor Covering Education Foundation recently announced. If you're new to tile installation, you can benefit from it.

You'll find details below, including CTEF training programs that are eligible.

Do you back butter your tile?

Back buttering tile is a highly opinionated and widely debated topic among tile installers. Although it's recommended for natural stone tile, it's not always necessary or required to get adequate mortar coverage on ceramic and porcelain tile. So, how important is it?

To begin this discussion, we first need to define several words.  According to the NTCA Reference Manual:

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.

When you install tile, do you ensure that you have enough mortar to accommodate inherent (actual) tile warpage associated with large format tile?

Tile sizes are changing; getting larger, longer, and proportionately having more inherent warpage. Likewise, changes are being seen in tile installation methods, using thin set and large and heavy tile mortars to accommodate tile warpage.

Let's review what's involved.