Expert: Dan Griffin - 1/22/2008

Question
I am currently building my third home and this time I am putting in a ceramic tiled shower I built the shower pan and have put up hardiebacker for the tile to go on.  Our home is on the rainy side of the island of Hawaii and mold can be a problem. I am therefor thinking of using epoxy grout between the tiles thinking that keeping the growth off will be easier.  Is that a reasonable idea?  Also I was thinking of making the grout lines as thin as absolutely possible.  Is there any downside to doing that?  I was also going to do the same on the kitchen counter and floors in the bathroom and kitchen. Can the grout lines be so narrow that the grout won't stay put?  I am also going to use a variety so tile sizes in the house and I noticed on the bag of thinset that the larger tiles require a notched trowel that puts down a heavier coat of thinset.  I can't figure out why they would have you do that.  Oh, one other thing,  I am just to the point of spraying on my wall texture.  In the past I have sprayed an acceptable splatter but can't figure how people get a finer orange peel finish. Only thing I can guess is that they put in a really thin mud mix in the hopper.  Thanks for your time Dan.  Regards, John

Answer
We have done the last several school jobs with epoxy grout.  I have not used it personally.  The clean up is harder and less forgiving than conventional grout.  If you can see any type of haze or thin film residue, it will not dust or wipe off in the morning like conventional grout.  We had an early install on a quarry tile floor that needed at least one more rinse, looks great wet, but it has the same haze once dry and will for the life of the floor.  Perhaps you should take on a small area first.  Laticrete, one of the major players, offers a product called Dazzle that adds a gentle glow in the dark effect that sounds interesting.

Larger tile require larger notch trowels.  This has to do with the tiles and the floor not necessarily being flat, needing about an 80% full contact, and having enough depth to eliminate lipping.  You can certainly try a thinner application, pull a tile while still wet, and see the contact.  I suspect you will be using the heavier notch.

I don't understand your concern about grout line size.  There is no minimum requirement of which I am aware as long as the joints are completely filled.  At some point it gets harder to grout.

I don't know what texture gun you may be using, the one I am most familiar with is a Goldblatt.  It comes with 2 different tips and a front disk that has 5 or 6 settings.  It is very easy to over apply texture, the tendency is to give the wall a coat of stuff, like spraying paint.  If you wet the entire wall, it is way too much, it will look terrible and you can see the drywall and joints through the texture until it is painted.