It doesn’t matter what type of tiles you have, whether in your bathroom or kitchen or living room, once tiles crack for any reason, it spoils the overall beauty of your home, and you’ll find you just can’t help but find your eye drawn to a cracked tile or tiles every time you enter the room! Most people find a rug or piece of furniture to cover the cracked tile, but there is a better more long term solution, and that’s to repair or replace the tile(s).
Installing Tiles for the First Time
When you’re installing tiles for the first time, you need to make sure you keep extra tiles as spares, usually around five to ten. This ensures that should you ever find yourself with a cracked tile, you don’t have to struggle to get the same kind of tile in your house, after all this could be years down the line once the tile is long since discontinued by the manufacturer. Once you’ve installed the tiles, getting one cracked is usually inevitable at some stage- moving around furniture can easily break or damage your tiles.
Repairing Tiles
The repair process will depend on with the extent of damage. If the tile is damaged a lot, you might have to replace the entire tile, but if it is only a small part that has cracked, you can fix this without having to remove the entire tile. To fix cracks on any tile without removing it will require you to use paint. The paint needs to be oil based and as close a match as you can get to the tile you are planning to fix. Apart from paint, you’ll need a paint brush, soapy water, and marine epoxy adhesive.
First, you’ll need to clean the tile that has been cracked. Dry the tile; you can use a hair dryer for this. Once dry, you will need to paint the tile, along the crack and leave it to dry. Once the paint has dried, you will need to apply epoxy to seal the crack with a waterproof finish, and this will likely need 24 hours or so to cure completely, so check the manufacturers instructions.
If the tile is damaged completely, you’ll need to remove the entire tile and replace it with another one.
