CPC31320 Wall & Floor Tiling cheat sheet

Safe work: WHS duty holders are the PCBU, officers, workers and other persons; a PCBU must eliminate risks so far as reasonably practicable, otherwise minimise them.

Hazard hierarchy of control, highest to lowest: eliminate, substitute, isolate, engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE.

Manual handling: keep the load close to the body, bend knees not the back, and assess the load before lifting; team-lift loads beyond individual capacity.

Working at height: a fall-risk control must be chosen in order - do the work on the ground, then passive fall prevention (guardrails, scaffolds), then work positioning, then fall arrest last.

Setting out a floor: establish the longest straight wall as the datum, strike a line, then use the 3-4-5 (or multiples) right-angle method to square the second axis before dry-laying.

Tile adhesive coverage for floors is at least 90% and for walls at least 80% of the tile back; solid-bed methods apply where substrates are uneven or service loads are high.

Standard tile thickness/format: ceramic wall tiles are commonly 6–8 mm; porcelain floor tiles 9–12 mm; expansion joints are required at perimeters and large areas per manufacturer spacing.

Mortar bed: a typical sand-cement screed mix is 1 part cement to 3–4 parts sand; cure concrete/screed for at least 7 days before tiling and verify moisture content.

Grout joint width: rectified porcelain commonly 2–3 mm; pressed ceramic 3–5 mm; wider joints (5–10 mm) for quarry or terracotta to allow movement.

Waterproofing: apply membrane to wet-area floors and walls to at least 150 mm above floor level (shower walls typically to 1800 mm or per AS 3740), with bond breakers at junctions.

Substrate tolerance: a 3 m straightedge with a 2 mm feeler gauge is used to check flatness; typical acceptable deviation is 3–5 mm over 3 m for floors.

Screed falls in showers: minimum 1:80 to 1:100 fall to the waste; check with a spirit level and verify ponding does not occur.

Large-format tile (>600 mm) requires back-buttering and a suitable C2 classified adhesive to achieve full coverage.

Movement joints: place at 3–4.5 m centres internally and at changes of substrate, perimeters, and where tiles abut different materials.

Tile cutting: wet saw for porcelain and stone, manual score-and-snap for ceramic; diamond blades for hard porcelain; always cut with water to control dust.

Mosaic and small tiles: use a notched trowel with small teeth and a thin-bed adhesive; grout with fine grout and seal porous stone before grouting.

Grout selection: cementitious grout for general use; epoxy grout for wet areas, commercial kitchens, and chemical exposure.

Quality/defects: hollow-sounding tiles indicate poor adhesive coverage; lippage is checked with a straightedge and should not exceed 1 mm for rectified tiles.