Mosaic tile installation in Batumi: showers, niches, splashbacks

Types of mosaic and what depends on them

Mosaic is sold in sheets of about 30×30 cm made up of chips from 1×1 to 5×5 cm. The sheet is held together either by mesh on the back or by paper on the face, which is soaked and peeled off after laying while the adhesive still lets you adjust a chip.

The chip material decides the adhesive and the tools:

• glass is translucent and the colour of the adhesive shows through it, so the adhesive has to be white, and glass is cut with nippers that have carbide wheels;
• ceramic mosaic is opaque and behaves like small tiles;
• stone mosaic is porous, so we seal it before grouting, otherwise the grout pigment soaks into the stone.

The base: mosaic shows every irregularity

A mosaic sheet follows the base like fabric. A bump nobody would notice under a 60×60 tile shows up on glass mosaic as a glint under the shower light. Mosaic adhesive goes on in a thin bed, and it won't hide pits and lumps in the wall.

That is why walls for mosaic are plastered to guide beads and brought to a smooth surface, and in the shower only with a cement mix. Over it, in the wet area, goes waterproofing with tape in the corners, and we use a mosaic adhesive that the manufacturer approves for that waterproofing.

Adhesive: white, a thin bed, a small notch

We lay glass mosaic only on white adhesive. Grey cement shows through glass, and light mosaic looks dirty, or patchy where the adhesive bed is uneven.

We spread the adhesive with a small-notch trowel, 3–4 mm, and under clear glass we smooth out the ridges so that they don't show through the chips. Adhesive squeezed into the joints is cleaned out at once while it is still soft: on mosaic, a joint with set adhesive in it stays shallow, the grout goes in thin, and that joint comes out lighter than the ones next to it.

Tiling that hardly ever dries out, for example in a steam room, goes on epoxy adhesive, which can take constant water.

Mosaic tile installation in Batumi: sheets, joints and cutting

We set out the mosaic from the main centre line: the mixer, the centre of a niche or the edge of a bench, so that the cut pieces end up in the corners and under the ceiling. If a strip half a chip wide is left at a corner, we shift the layout.

We keep the joint between sheets the same as the joint within a sheet, otherwise the wall gets marked out in 30×30 squares. We check the rows with a string line as we go and correct any sheet that has shifted while the adhesive is fresh.

A sheet on mesh is cut with a knife between the rows, and individual chips are cut with nippers. Murals and colour blends in several shades arrive with numbered sheets: before laying, we set them out on the floor following the manufacturer's plan and photograph them, so that no sheet goes in upside down.

Epoxy grout in the shower and on the splashback

In the shower, on the bathroom floor and on the splashback by the hob, we grout mosaic with epoxy grout. On mosaic the choice of grout matters more than on tiles: a square metre of 2×2 cm mosaic has about 90 linear metres of joint, while a square metre of 60×60 tiles has just over three. In a wet area, cement grout soaks up water and soap through that whole grid, and the wall darkens in a check pattern. There is a general table of grouts in the section on tiling.

We work the epoxy in with a rubber float diagonally to the rows, so as not to drag it out of the joints, in sections of about a metre at a time, and wash the residue off the face straight away. With clear glass, the joint colour shows through the edge of each chip, so we choose the grout on a sample from the same sheet: a dark joint turns light glass grey. How the splashback meets the worktop and the sockets is covered on the page about kitchen renovation.

Mosaic on the shower floor, in a niche and on a bench

For a point drain, the floor is formed with four falls, and large tiles have to be cut diagonally along the fall lines. Mosaic doesn't need this: a 2×2 cm chip on a fall of about 2% gives a step of less than half a millimetre, and the sheet sits on the falls without any cuts. On the floor we use matt mosaic, as glossy glass is slippery under water. The fall and the choice of drain are described on the page about the shower without a tray.

We tile niches, benches and curved walls without metal trims: the sheet bends to the radius, and the smaller the chip, the tighter the curve it follows without gaps. We build external corners from whole chips, and give the bench seat a fall outwards so that water doesn't stand on it.

How to sign off mosaic

We sign off mosaic before the water in the shower is turned on:

• step back three or four metres: from there you can see whether the joint between sheets differs from the joint within a sheet;
• shine a torch along the wall: on glass, waves in the base come through as glints;
• the joints are filled to the same depth, with no dips and no adhesive showing in them;
• the glass has no cloudy haze or grout smears;
• the chips don't move under a finger at corners, along the edges of niches and by the drain.

How much mosaic tile installation costs in Batumi

Laying mosaic costs from 140 to 190 ₾ per m². That is labour only: the mosaic, adhesive and grout mix are not included, and mosaic grouting as a job is a separate line, from 48 to 66 ₾ per m². It costs more than grouting tiles because of the number of joints.

Mosaic as a material costs from 215 to 360 ₾ per m², and glass, ceramic and stone vary widely in price. If the wall has to be replastered for mosaic, sand and cement plaster adds from 51 to 66 ₾ per m², and two-coat shower waterproofing from 30 to 42 ₾ per m².

Niches, benches and curved walls, murals to a plan and small glass chips cost more, while a flat wall of ceramic mosaic with large chips costs less. The final cost is set after the site measurement and once the estimate is agreed.