Tile Baseboards – What Are Tile Baseboards and the Adhesive Options?
Tile baseboards are simply baseboards which are entirely made up of tiles. They can add character to your room with an already existing tiled floor in place, and unlike wooden baseboards which have to be nailed in place and painted or varnished for their final finish; tile baseboards are simply just glued on to foot of the wall.
To get a good size and design match for tile baseboards, the easiest way is to use floor tiles exactly the same as the ones you previously laid, so if you decide upon this, then buy enough to cover the perimeter of your wall in the initial stages of floor tiling preparation. If you take a 12″ inch floor tile for example, then to get a baseboard of an average height of 4″ inches, you simply need to cut your tile into three equal sections.
Because these are straight cuts, the use of a ceramic tile breaker would be ideal for the job, providing of course that it is ceramic tiles you are working with. The other best option would be the electric wet tile saw, but this would undoubtedly take more time to prepare the cuts, as well as giving you cuts of uneven width. If you do use this method, then compensate for the width of the wet tile saw blade. It will remove anything from between 1/16″ to 1/8″ inch extra from the fully cut tile, and can set your pieces off with having irregular sizes.
To calculate the amount of tiles you need for your baseboards if you are using the same style of floor tile, then simply count the amount of tiles you have along each wall, add up the total, then divide by three you get your quantity. When you place them on the wall, make sure to keep your floor grout lines continual by projecting them upward into the tile baseboards. If you do it any other way by placing a tile baseboard directly over where a grout line ends, then you are going to have something that looks very strange indeed. Match each tile baseboard in line with each floor tile.
For sticking them to the wall, the best thing I find to use is a multi-purpose construction adhesive product known as PL Premium. It costs around $5 dollars for an application tube suited for use with cocking guns, and it is a fantastic glue to work with which will practically stick anything to anything instantly. That includes your fingers, so apply it and use with care. This brand may not be available in your region or country, but there will certainly be alternatives and your local hardware store will soon steer you in the right direction with advice.
A couple of other options for adhering tile baseboards to a wall are either regular silicone cocking, or ceramic tile adhesive. Regular cocking doesn’t really have very good adhesive properties and you may find that the tiles have a tendency to slide. Pre-mixed ceramic tile adhesive though does work well with wall tiling applications, for which basically tile baseboards really are, but providing it is never allowed to come in contact with water.
To apply this you simply take a v-notch trowel and ‘back butter’ the adhesive onto the tile, spreading evenly, and then affixing in place. It can however, be a lot messier that simply squirting on a line of construction adhesive from a cocking gun, but all the same it is still very effective at attaching wall tiles successfully.