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Installing Travertine Tiles

Hi,

I am going to install travertine floor in my kitchen. I have installed ceramic tile before but not any natural flooring. Could you give me any helpful advice on the sealant process, etc?

Thanks!
Doug

Hello Doug

The short answer is don’t try it and let someone with experience install the travertine. I only say that because most people really mess up travertine installations the first time. You will learn a lot from what you do wrong but then it will be too late.

Ceramic Tile has factory edges and is more forgiving; however, travertine does not and you will probably have lips that you can feel and will cast shadows. To make matter worse, travertine likes to de-bound from the substrate in time unless it is properly back scratched with latex-modified thinsets. The corners of travertine are also very susceptible to cracking after installation due to extreme pressure from high heals and other forces. Be sure to put extra thinset under all the corners. I would use a 3/8″ square notch trowel for spreading the thinset on the concrete floor. Expect a bag to cover about 30 square feet.

Basically, if you can afford a few more dollars per square foot, hire an experienced installer. After installation and grouting, wait 36 hours before applying two coats of premium penetrating stone sealer (follow manufactures instructions).

Best wishes,
Tom Cordova

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Answers to Travertine Questions..., Installation Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. January 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am

    Hello: My boyfriend and I are planning on installing 2″ by 2″ travertine tiles on our kitchen backsplash. We have little experience with tiling and have a few questions. First, the tiles we purchased come on square foot meshed backgrounds. Can we apply the entire square foot with the meshed background to the wall at once? If so are there any tricks to doing it this way? I have read that to install the tile, one should back butter each individual tile and then adhere it to the wall with thinset and wiggle it then press into place. Should we skim the sheetrock with the thinset and backbutter each square foot sheet or just do one or the other? Also what sized rowel should we use? Can you recommend a good thinset for this tile as well as grout and sealer? Thanks so much.