Installation & Maintenance

Before installation, please keep tiles in boxes in a dry place. Avoid being in contact with water or humidity as it may cause tiles to be stained.

If the floor is properly sealed, it will not absorb stains. However, when there is coffee, tea, wine, acids, etc. on the floor, they should not be left to sit on the tile for long as they will eventually eat through the sealer and stain the tile.

The floor should be cleaned with pH-neutral soap and water. Do not use any acids or bleach on these tiles! Please click here for our detailed instruction on encaustic cement tile floor maintenance.

Yes, it is very important that encaustic cement tile floor has to be sealed. Cement tile is a porous material that absorbs stains and dirt if not properly sealed. There are two general types of sealers: penetrating and topical. Penetrating sealers are absorbed into the cement and make it more difficult for the stain to adhere to the cement. Topical sealers sit on the surface of the tile and do not let the stain through. We recommend you use a good penetrating sealer to protect the floor after installation.

For our encaustic cement tiles, the floor will not be ground or polished after installation. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to levelling the tiles during installation to have a perfectly flat floor.

For our encaustic terrazzo, there is no need to grind or polish the floor after installation. However, in some countries, the encaustic terrazzo floor is ground and polished after installation. In these cases, please pay attention not to grind more than 1mm away from the top layer (as the thickness of first layer in our encaustic terrazzo is about 3mm).

Fill the joints with grouting liquid. For the grouting color, you can choose either white grout or colored grout. White grout matches most of the cases. However, for colored grout, please choose the color which is the same with the color of tile or pattern in the tile. DO NOT use black or dark grouting liquid as it may stain the floor.

Most of the time, encaustic cement tiles are installed on cement mortar substrate. In some cases, installing on wood subflooring could be possible, but please check carefully with your contractor about it. Special care should be taken if installing over a wooden subfloor so that the tiles don’t crack as the subfloor expands and contracts. We recommend installing on cement mortar substrate as it is a more stable.
 

We recommend using mortar to fix the tiles on the substrate. When using mortar, you can adjust the level of tile surface more easily than using glues.
 

Installing encaustic cement tiles is not a difficult process, but great care has to be taken to protect the floor from being stained or damaged. We have a detailed instruction document on how to install encaustic cement tiles. Please check more details here.