What is a spacer joint in tile flooring? - advantages & disadvantages./What is spacer joint in construction?

In the spacer joint type of tile flooring, the tiles are fixed by using tile spacers to maintain a gap in between them. After the completion of fixing work, the joints are filled with grouts of suitable color. 

For your understanding, I have downloaded the image of the tile spacer as shown below.

The tile spacers are placed at the junction point of the four tiles (image below) so that the gap between the tiles is maintained uniformly.

Once the line and level are achieved in the tile fixing, grout is filled in between the tile joints having a uniform thickness.

What are the advantages & disadvantages of spacer joint type of tile flooring?

Advantages:

1. Easy to repair:

If any single tile breaks in the flooring, removing & replacing that particular tile is easy & simple in spacer joint tiles. Remove the grouts surrounding that tile, and the broken tile comes out without damaging the adjacent tiles. 

2. Leveled tile surface:

If there are any minute undulations in the tile corners, the grout thickness helps to hide such defects. It provides an aesthetic look to your eye.  

As you can observe in the above drawing, in a paper joint type of flooring, the tile defects are visible at the joints but in the spacer joints, due to the sandwiched grout in between, the defects are not visible & can be controlled.

3. Camouflage tile defects:

The uneven tile edges can be camouflaged in the grout thicknesses, to create a straight line in the joints of the spacer-type flooring. The same is not true in the case of paper joint tile fixing (as shown in the above drawing).

4. Takes care of thermal expansion:

When the flooring work is done to cover the larger surface area, the thermal expansion & contraction gets absorbed by the grouted part of the spacer joint. This prevents the development of cracks in the floors in all types of climatic conditions.

Disadvantages:

1. More grouting material:

The spacer joint consumes more grouting material when compared to the paper joint type of flooring. 

2. More time to work:

The spacer joint type of tile flooring needs more time to fix, grout & finish the work.

First, you have to install tile spacers at the corner of all tiles. After tile placing, you have to prepare the epoxy grout material to fill the joints. All these procedures need more time period to finish the job.

3. Needs trained worker:

Spacer joint type of flooring needs a skilled and trained worker to install the tiles by maintaining accurate straight grout lines. The appearance of the room gets disturbed if the worker makes any mistake in maintaining the same spacer joint thickness. 

4. Higher working costs:

The flooring work needs more grout material, trained workers, & more time to finish the job. All these requirements ultimately sum up to the higher working cost.

For more such explanatory articles, click here.
 

Thank you for going through this article❤. Have a good day 😄.

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