Tiling is one of the trades where the difference between someone who knows and someone who doesn’t is most obvious. Ceramic is unforgiving: a joint that opens, a tile that sounds hollow or a badly resolved cut in the corner of the shower stays visible for good, and putting it right means breaking out. What makes a good tiler is not speed, it is the setting out beforehand and the care taken at the junctions.
At Grupo Construcciones Alicante we carry out wall and floor tiling in homes, commercial units and communal areas across Alicante and the province, in ceramic, porcelain, natural stone and large format. We prepare the substrate, set out every wall before the first tile goes on, and take care of the finishing: trims or mitred corners, junctions with joinery, socket cut-outs and the cuts around the taps.
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Tiling done properly lasts the life of the bathroom and never causes trouble; done badly, the joints start failing within a year or two, and behind an open joint in a shower area there is always damp in the adjoining wall or in the neighbouring property.
Ceramic is also the material that works best in this climate: it takes the heat, the sun doesn’t affect it, it cleans with nothing and outdoors it withstands the weather without maintenance. In an area with so many coastal properties, terraces and porches, good exterior porcelain solves for decades what other materials need touching up every season.
With ceramic, the result is decided before the first tile is fixed. This is how we work:
We check whether the walls are plumb and square, which in older buildings they almost never are, and measure each surface. That deviation determines where the cut tiles end up.
A fixed quote with the square metres of wall and floor, the chosen format, the trims and the type of grout, plus removal of the old material if it has to come off.
We prepare the substrate: breaking out or cutting back, levelling the wall and waterproofing the shower area with a membrane or liquid coating before tiling.
We dry-lay the whole wall first: where the first course starts, how the joints relate to the taps and sockets, and which corner takes the cuts.
We fix with the adhesive appropriate to the material and format, checking flatness and that no tile is hollow underneath. With large format, back-buttering and a levelling system.
We grout, silicone the junctions with the sanitaryware and in the internal corners, clean and check every cut before signing the bathroom off.
Larger format, greater demands. Porcelain at 60×120 or above leaves fewer joints and looks superb, but it requires a very flat substrate, specific adhesive, back-buttering and levelling clips. On a wall that is out of true, a large tile reveals every defect a small one would hide.
The in-situ shower tray. The most requested job when renovating a bathroom. It has its technique: forming the falls, continuous waterproofing running up the walls, a reinforcing band at the junctions and sealing of the drain. A linear drain allows a single fall and looks cleaner with large tiles. There are no shortcuts here: if the waterproofing fails, the water appears in the room next door.
Tiling without breaking out. If the existing tiling is sound and well bonded, you can tile over it with a bonding primer. It saves rubble, noise and days on site, although you lose a centimetre per face and the junctions with the door frame and sanitaryware need checking.
Joints and grouting. The joint is not a styling choice: it absorbs substrate movement and thermal expansion. In shower trays, commercial kitchens and demanding areas we use epoxy grout, which absorbs no water and does not stain, although it takes more work to apply than standard cement grout.
Setting out is what separates professional tiling from mediocre tiling, and it is invisible in a quote. It means deciding, before anything is fixed, where the first tile starts so the cuts land in the least visible corners, so the top course doesn’t end in a two-centimetre sliver, so the wall joints line up with the floor if the design calls for it, and so the taps don’t fall right on a joint.
The second critical point is the substrate. Tiling over a wall that is out of plumb means compensating with adhesive, and that is where the hollow tiles come from that fail years later. If the wall is poor, it gets levelled first, even if that costs another day.
And the third is waterproofing the wet areas. It is the item nobody sees, the one that can be skipped without the client noticing on handover day, and the cause of ninety per cent of serious problems in renovated bathrooms. We always do it in the shower area, whether or not it appears in a competitor’s quote.
Tiling work we carry out regularly in Alicante:
Yes, provided the existing tiling is well bonded (checked by tapping tile by tile), there is no damp and a bonding primer is applied. It is faster, with no rubble and none of the noise of breaking out, and very practical in occupied properties. The drawbacks: you lose a little space, the junction with the door frame needs checking, and you cannot take the opportunity to renew the buried pipework behind it.
A complete bathroom, including breaking out, substrate preparation, waterproofing, wall and floor tiling and grouting, usually takes two to three weeks once the setting times and the plumbing and sanitaryware installation are added. Tiling over the existing surface without changing the services can be done in a good week.
A minimal joint is only viable with rectified tiles, which leave the factory at exact dimensions; non-rectified tiles need a wider joint to absorb the variation between pieces. And even where the material allows it, a zero joint does not exist: you must always leave the minimum the manufacturer specifies, because ceramic expands. Eliminating it altogether is the direct route to tiles arching off the wall in the heat.
It can be replaced individually: the tile and old adhesive are removed, we establish why it came away (damp, a loose substrate or insufficient adhesive) and a new one is fixed. The usual problem is finding the same model years later, which is why we always recommend keeping a few spare tiles. If several have come loose in the same area, the substrate needs checking before patching one by one.
Low-absorption porcelain, frost resistant and with a slip rating suited to the use, especially where there is a pool nearby. Leave a slightly wider joint than indoors to absorb thermal movement, and respect the expansion joints in the area. Laid over a slab with correct falls, it lasts decades without maintenance.
Always, and it is non-negotiable. A liquid membrane or sheet is applied over the shower area substrate, running far enough up the walls, with reinforcing band at the junctions and sealing around the drain. That layer is what stops moisture crossing the wall even if a joint eventually opens. It is the difference between a leak and a joint that simply needs repointing.