How to Install Ceramic Tile on Concrete

Installing tile on concrete yourself can seem like a daunting task, but it can actually be DIY friendly! You just need a healthy dose of patience and you too can do-it yourself. But first, let’s discuss if tile is the right choice for you.

Is tile the right choice for you?

Tile is Pet-Friendly

I chose tile because I have elderly dogs and I was tired of shampooing dog pee out of the carpet. I’ve lived in a home with hardwood floors, and my dogs absolutely destroyed them. I can’t bear the thought of paying thousands of dollars to install beautiful hardwood floors only to have them destroyed within years, so I settled on wood-look tile.

Tile Handles Moisture

Tile is a great choice for laundry rooms, bathrooms, and basements because it handles water far better than wood, laminate, or carpet. My basement previously had carpet and vinyl plank. Well, the basement flooded (another post coming soon on how we fixed that!) and the carpet got mildewy/moldy, and the vinyl ended up with a layer of dirt between the vinyl and the concrete. Walking on the floor and feeling it “crunch” gives me the heeby-jeebies, especially because there was no easy way to clean UNDER the floor. The mortar “glues” down the tile onto the concrete, preventing the dirt from getting ingrained underneath my flooring. Additionally, the membrane installed prevents water (or dog pee…) from soaking through into the slab underneath.

Tile is Durable

If you want a fast way to break your phone, I recommend dropping it onto a tile floor. Tile is hard and extremely durable. Durability is something very important to my family because our floors have to stand up to me, dogs, the occasional chicken or duck, and all the dirt/sand/debris we track in from the yard.

Tile is NOT Cheap

It is very easy to get tricked into tile being an inexpensive flooring choice. However, even the cheapest tile has a lot of hidden costs! From Lowes, the most popular floor tile range in price from $0.50 to $2.50 a square foot. The tile I chose retails for $1.07 a sq foot. Adding in thinset costs and membrane costs, this came out to over $3 a square foot! Even cheap tile comes out on par with other flooring options (like LVP, hardwoods, and laminates). On top of that, there are special tools needed to install tile that the average homeowner does not have. I spent $50 on trowels and floats alone. I luckily had a 10 A drill already, but you really need a drill with some horsepower to mix thinset (and buying the premixed tubs is not economical if you’re doing anything bigger than a closet sized space). My drill was about $100 but has held up great! It has a 1/2″ chuck, is corded, and is an absolute beast at mixing thinset and driving in screws on floors (I also used this on a past project to install backerboard).