Tile Lippage On Wall

Often times expectations far exceed the physical abilities of the tile or stone or the physical characteristics of the surface on which the tile or stone will be installed to provide for a perfect installation.

Tile lippage on wall.

Unfortunately with such dramatic eye appeal comes the. Variation in the height of adjoining tiles is called lippage. This is defined in the ansi american national standards institute standard a108 02 section 4 3 7. The tile lippage standards apply to both floor and wall applications.

Ansi a108 02 2013 section 4 3 7 lippage states that a ceramic tile porcelain is a type of ceramic tile grout joint that is less than 1 4 in width cannot have any more lippage than 1 32 plus the actual warpage in the tile. Offsets and grout joints are particularly critical when you are installing larger tile sizes and rectangular tile such as a wood plank tile where the length is much greater than the width. Large ceramic porcelain or stone floor tiles add beauty and luxury to a home design. Wall tile applications are more susceptible to mistaken lippage where the tile lippage meets the standards but because of the lighting in the area it looks excessive.

However not every warpage qualifies as lippage. Answer answer tile lippage is the difference in height between two adjacent edges of tile or of a crack or of a control joint in concrete. Ansi a108 02 2013 section 4 3 7 cautions the lippage requirements do not apply to tiled floors sloping to drains specifically when using tiles 15 x 15 mm 6 x 6 in and larger. The more dimension variation a tile has the wider the grout joint should be to keep grout joints looking consistently straight and to minimize potential tile lippage.

According to the american national standards institute ansi the allowable lippage for grout joints that are less than 6 mm 1 4 in wide is 1 mm 1 32 in plus the built in tile warpage. In faux wood tile sophistication we mentioned how important it is to pay attention to offsets when installing tile the reason. The allowable lippage for grout joints that are 6 mm or wider is 2 mm 1 16 in plus the warpage. There are exceptions for tiles installed on sloped surfaces and for hand molded tiles.

Unavoidable lippage at drains there are some applications where tile lippage to some degree is unavoidable. Tile size affects tile installation. This is why one sees grout joints on irregular sized mexican paver tiles that are 20 mm 3 4 in or wider which helps compensate for the wide variations in their dimensional.