The patio is a space of the house, or rather of the property, which is located outside the four domestic walls, and can be a loggia or a porch, from which precisely the internal house itself is accessed. They could be equipped or not with a roof, if there could be a large fountain or in the outdoor chairs.
You chose a tile for outdoor terraces, prepared the concrete slab, made a correct layout, allowed expansion joints and bought the right adhesive. Now that all the preparation work is finished, it’s time to start setting up the units on the spot.
Mistake checklist for laying patio flagstones and interlock pavers
1. Not keeping the tools and materials required within your reach
Things you will need. Keep all these tools close at hand when working with the outside patio tiles: knee pads (you will thank us for that tip at the end of the day), trowels (margin trowels and, above all, serrated trowels), buckets, spacers, a sponge, a tape measure, a pencil and a level.
2. Close yourself up in a corner
Where to start. After completing the layout with a grid, you should be able to see where each exterior tile is going. This means you can start anywhere. Some people start in the middle, some start in the far corner from where they will cut tiles, mix thinset and then come back. Whichever direction you move, make sure you don’t catch yourself in a corner. After the outdoor patio tiles have been placed in the thinset, you cannot walk on them until the next day. Make sure you have an escape route in mind before you begin. You don’t want to spend the night on your new outdoor tiled patio waiting for the thinset to dry.
3. Choosing a wrong spatula
Choose the right spatula. The outdoor patio tiles are fixed with toothed spatulas, available at home goods stores. Use a trowel with appropriate notches for the units you are setting up. The bigger the tile, the bigger the notch you need. A 12 foot by 12 foot outdoor tile should be set with a spatula of at least 1/4 inch.
4. Spreading thinset unevenly
Using the notched trowel, spread the thinset (ie the tile adhesive) over a small area, enough to cover four tiles to start with. It’s ok to cover most of the grid lines, be sure to leave the corners where the lines intersect so you can see where to place the tiles. Using the notch side of the trowel, widen the thinset so that the notches are of consistent size and all turn in the same direction.
5. Leaving a set stone unchecked
Set your first outdoor patio flagstone or an interlocking paver. Align it on the grid lines. Apply pressure to the tile to make it stick to the adhesive. Try the card again. Right, you put it down, but you have to check the coverage of the thinset on the tile. If the coverage is not sufficient, the installation will not last. Almost the entire back of the patio’s exterior must be covered with thinset. If not, you need a trowel with a bigger notch.
6. Not using a grid or spacers
Set the next outdoor patio flagstone or paver. Set the next stone using your grid as a guide. If you haven’t created a grid, you can use spacers, small plastic dividers used to separate identical tiles from one another. With the tile spacers, the joints between the tiles will all be the same size, but without a grid it is easy to get out of the way and not make the tiles in a straight line. Continue to set up your outdoor patio flagstones. Continue this process until all units have been thrown. You will almost certainly have to cut some units.