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Need urgent help as am at breaking point. Bathroom is tiled in Calacatta Lappato Extra by Minoli. Which Mapei UltracolourPlus colour grout would the distinguished experts here use? Am torn between plain white and silver grey. Cannot get swatches / samples of grout at the moment. Thank you

I am prepping my garage floor with a diamond grinder for a epoxy resin finish and having ground some areas I have found some bug holes / pin holes in the concrete caused by air bubbles or whatnot. I don’t want leave them and epoxy over the top as it will likely cause air bubbles in the finish. I understand when going for a polished concrete floor, a grout is added which fills such holes. I’m struggling to find such a product to buy. Epoxy mortars are probably to thick for small (single figure mm) holes so I’m wondering whether a cement and water slurry spread over may fill these in before a final pass with the diamond grinder or if anyone has any recommendations for a slurry/grout product. Thanks

I have quite a few old bricks, found them under the old garage slab, looks like they scraped all the top soil off to the clay then dumped a lorry load of bricks to make up the ground then covered it in whin dust which sort of filled the top layer gaps. Interestingly if any of us suggested this method today we would all baulk at the idea, yet this garage did pretty well for 60 odd years on a 2-3 inch slab with edges built up on cobbles 3/4 layers deep. The bricks are quite nice, big 9" red bricks in pretty good condition, so I have been scratching my head after I had to lift a couple of 100 to run a soil pipe through the old garage site wondering what to do with them, so I looked about, I have always liked the reclaimed brick walls and paths and things so decided to give the new garage a new side entrance as test bed for bigger things. (The dark area to the left of the 4th from the right bottom brick isn't a gap, it is heavily fired clay.) I am quite pleased with the results, I used a wet grout technique, this will not be a step so the rough sides will be unseen - the ground level around is coming back up. So the plan is now a much larger area that leads to this entrance to create a theme.

I have to repair parts of the fireplace in our front room and while I have the stone I am wondering how to match the new cement with the stuff already used? I have mixed up the sand with cement for the outside wall and its a completely differernt colour, more grey. So any suggestions on how to get something closer to the original? Thanks. It's Cotswold stone and the grout/cement used in similar in colour to the stone. The right hand side has a section missing and there is also some needed on the far left hand side which you cant really see from the photo's. here's what it looked like originally. I have removed the wood mantle but hope to get another nice oak mantle for it. should match the wood flooring which we plan to put down.

We have just had our paving laid around the perimeter of the house. Now need to grout it! I got a great price on 600mm x 900mm x 20mm smooth platinum grey sandstone slabs (£30/sqm) and the landscaper laid about 100m2 of them on a sand & cement mix (with SBR). Opted against brick bond for a more contemporary look with 5mm gaps and while it was more fiddly for him it looks great. Standard paving grout (such as Easy joint) is intentionally porous but the landscaper is concerned that because the slabs are so smooth underneath, any water ingress and frost may loosen the slabs over time so he's suggesting a more impermeable grout such as BAL widejoint - this is stated as suitable for external use (such as pools) even more so if you use their GT1 admix. I've decided to do this part myself, any tips or advice? Not sure if this is best done by just ramming it into the gaps or to use a applicator gun. --- About the paving... we laid them flush with the house entrances and maintained a 100mm separation from the render horizontally and 200mm vertically. Once the channels are cleaned of muck, i'm applying 200mm of grey Ubilflex to the exposed external EPS and will then fill the bottom 100mm with a decorative stone to act as a french drain. Because we have a basement, there is a 1m perimeter of clean stone cobbles as backfill with a land drain at the foot of the basement so it's very free draining. Patio also falls away from house in all directions. BC and the render firm approved this as acceptable. To tidy the EPS plinth prior to paving, I applied an additional 25mm EPS to 200mm depth all around, lapping the DPM from the frame down under the new EPS. This new EPS also covered any exposed timber where the outer leaf of the frame slightly overhung the original basement EPS. Where we paved up to doors, the DPM went over the top of the stone and has been trimmed back, will run some sealant along those edges to keep water out. Garden will be graded and laid to lawn in a few weeks, then a deep breath and we start to plan the front of the house - just getting quotes for electric gates and resin bonded driveway...eek.

Hi all, Needing a little advice: We've just gotten a new bath fitted today, and new tiles put in at two (narrow) ends of the bath. The bathroom fitter is returning tomorrow to apply grout and seal the bath. I get the feeling he's wanting to finish the job in the shortest amount of time (somewhat understandable), but I thought some time had to be given in between putting the grout and the sealant? Can anyone advise how long should the waiting time be? Many thanks.

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This section is dedicated to all aspects of tiling. Whether it be wall, or floor, bathroom or kitchen, whole of floor, or other, you'll find all you need to know here. From which adhesives to use and why, through to how to grout, finish and seal ready for use. Just post a new thread here and we'll advise you to the best of our knowledge and help you get the job done right, first time. From this To this