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Has anybody used an online supplier that they have been happy with, prices range from £10/m2 to £50/m2 +.
I appreciate that there are various grades but all the online suppliers tend to big up their product as being Premium. The tiling forums slate (no pun intended) all "budget" online suppliers.
Just wondered whether anybody had any experience in such things.
Cheers,
Harry
Travertine comes in different grades
Cheap stuff has a lot of filler in it and the colour can vary a lot.
It stains easily and needs several coats of sealer.
This needs to be regularly recoated too.
I'd go for a man made tile of similar appearance.
There's a place near me in Loughborough called Floors of stone that I've used a few times for customers of mine, They're online and I believe do delivery services too.
Get a sample from anyone you're planning on using, look for filler (the lack of it) turn it over, is there lots of holes? leave it well alone, if it's pretty solid you should be ok. Obviously they may hand pick a nice tile to send you but the batch should be a fair representation of what they've send, so if it isn't you can arrange to swap out bad pieces if there's too many.
Normally with tiles I'd allow to buy 10% more than required but with Travatine I always up this qty as with it being natural stone sometimes you get a few manky looking ones that you wouldn't want to use. also it's very soft so you'll probably break a couple.
Are you fitting yourself? You'll want a diamond tipped wet cutter for the job, a std cutter won't do the job as they don't score and snap like Ceramics. I have an overhead radial saw and even then it's a time consuming job. Use a good quality cement WHITE based powder adhesive NOT ready mixed tile adhesive. I use PCI Nanolight with the primer suitable for your walls and you'll need to use a solid bed trowel.
Usually Travatine has a wax sealer applied from the factory to stop scratching etc in transit, this will need to be removed before you fit them, give em a good clean and then seal the surface with HG Stainstop or the like. once they're grouted, you'll need to clean them up again then seal again.
Although I've fitted plenty I'm not a massive Travatine fan, It looks really good done well but very time consuming so if getting someone in expect to pay around twice as much as fitting ceramics. I charge £45pm2.
I vote for this ^ as the most authoritative and relevant response to a question in the history of STW...
i looked into travertine when i was redesigning my kitchen, utility & hall. Eventually opted for a good quality man made 'lookalike', main reasons were i didnt want to seal them regulary, variations in quality/pattern/thickness, having to buy special adhesive & cutting blades.
-m- - Member
I vote for this ^ as the most authoritative and relevant response to a question in the history of STW...
too early in the thread though; as I was reading it I was thinking "that's not fair !" 😕
Cheers B-S for just the sort of answer I was after.
Been out and bought some Glazed Porcelain lookalikes, cannot be doing with the hastle.
I'm now about 3m2 into a 15m2 job! no riding for me this week!
H.
Special cutting blades??? Stihl saw, a keen eye and steady hand sorted the cuts for my kitchen floor!! However yes it needs sealing (use lithofin) and it's also worth using lithofin colour intensifier on it prior to sealing because it does exactly what it says on the tin!!
Can travertine e used in a shower enclosure (on the walls) I'm on the verge of having my en suite covered in the stuff 😕
Worried now....
D.
Yes, we have travertine in our shower.
Which brings me on to my own travertine question(s):
1) Assuming it was sealed in the first place, does it need re-sealing?
2) How often?
3) Just the tiles inside the shower or all of them in the bathroom?
4) How do I re-seal them?
I tiled our bathroom with Travertine floor tiles and Travertine in the shower area (2 different types of Travertine)
In the shower area I used the 'water proof' tile adhesive and made sure that there were no bits of wall showing through. I then sealed and then grouted over the top of everything before resealing again, and then again.
The floor tiles were very easy to lay, but in fairness the upstand took a bit of cutting and I got through a couple of blades.
Now a year on its all still looking as good as new with no problems. Although I reckon I will probably seal the shower tiles again in a year or so time.
Travertine is basically natural Limestone so water does eat it away. I cant find the bill but I think we paid roughly £20-£25 m2 from ebay.
We since had a Pro tiler do a kitchen floor and he was impressed with the standard of the tiling and the quality of the tiles in the bathroom and said he would struggle to get the same quality for the price we paid.