Anyone familiar with tile work?

[Miasma]

I did all bamboo floors in my current house, It was the worst concrete floor(no basements or crawlspaces where I live) I have ever seen. All cracked and uneven. I had to level the whole house with that self leveling concrete. But it looks great now and is solid.

[ieatpeople]

definitely get the mastic covering, use lots of them "green" screws, and take your time and do it right. it will be worth it.

just retiled a bathroom in my basement, looks tits.

[mbonder]

Make sure that you cement the hardboard to the plywood. I have seen idiots just screw the hardboard down to the plywood and then tile over that. Then in a couple of months they wonder why the grout and tiles start to crack!

Lay a nice coat of cement down for the hardboard to sit on, then put millions of screws into it, make sure to hit the joists as well, the more screws the merrier as Blunt says. You can also fill the joints between the hardboard pieces with cement to give you a perfectly smooth surface for your tiles to sit on.

[BimmerTom]

Also, buy a tile saw. You can spend very little money and get one that works just fine for small projects and spend less than renting one. Those sliding compound miter jobs are nice, but overkill. Comeon... it's figgin tile and that's what grout is for. :)

Also, I use a laser that is designed for hanging pictures. It has a level built in and just shoots a line out. I put that on the floor and measure out where my tile is going to lay out and mark it on the wall. I shoot a laser line down the first row and lay them, with the edges just touching the laser.

Move to the next row and so on. It beats snapping chalk lines since it doesn't matter if you mud over the line, it still shows up.

[Miasma]

I did the tile at my parents house, Picked up a wet tile saw from Harbor Freight for cheap and it worked like a charm.