You can’t tile right over cracks in a solid floor, your new tiles will probably crack or pop in time too! Cracks in a solid floor are an indication that your floor has moved or is moving. This happens due to many reasons and can include dissimilar materials, heating expansion, foundation movement, tiling over green screeds or too large a tiled area being fixed without regular stress relief as dictated by British Standards.

If your cracks are straight then this suggests your floor movement is vertical, if they are spider web / lightning cracks then this is an indication that your floor is suffering horizontal movement.

We will install movement joints in vertically moving floors and decoupling membranes in horizontally moving floors.

The installation of movement joints is critical both in their placement and the materials used, they most be installed correctly to function. Decoupling membranes also have to be installed using the correct adhesives. Although movement joints will result in a 5~10mm feature in your new tiled floor, the impact can be minimised by the installation of colour matched joints.

We strongly suggest that movement joints must be installed at the interface between different materials, a typical example would be between an established floorboard area and a concrete extension.

It’s a specially constructed three part strip that will be installed with the tiles. The movement joint once installed will appear from the surface to be very similar to a grout line. Good movement joints consist of three parts, two metal parts with a colour matched rubber strip between them.

This looks like a plastic sheet that is installed underneath the tiles. The surface appears to be comprised of multiple specially shaped bubbles, these features are designed so the tiled surface above the decoupling membrane can shift laterally relative to the surface under the membrane. The selection and application of the adhesive is important when installing decoupling membranes.