2810 cotto tiles + tiling

We have found a renovated property which is owned by Italians. It suits our needs perfectly and the only changes required are down to our taste. The first floor has the most hideous sunburst orange floor tiles and, whilst we can live with them for a bit, will eventually need to come off. We had a quick look in a tile shop today in Lucca and new (traditional) cotto tiles there were around 55 Euros per square metre. We need 40 sq metres. Does anyone know where we can get cheaper cotto tiles? Possibly we could buy cleaned up reclaimed ones. The other thing is what should we expect to pay a tiler per square meter to take up the old ones and put in the cotto ones? Our budget is around 3000.00 Euros for the whole job. Is this possible?

Category
Building/Renovation

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/01/2006 - 15:10

if you search around in the area... try and avoid specialist tile shops but see if you can find large building merchants.... there are cotto tiles that come from the eastern european countries at a much cheaper price...

as regards finding older original tiles there will be two problems, italians have now realised that these have a higher value than the brand new ones, secondly because of their irregular shapes they will be harder to lay, therefore more costly

the price of the work i cannot help you with, i would not attempt tile laying myself, the professional always gets a better looking finish, however if you can face lifting them yourself go out buy one of those larger demolition drills, fix a wide shaped chisel head and it might take you one noisey day to do the job... the cheaper drills from a diy store cost as little as e60 the wide chisel head around e30, apart from having pins and needles at the end of the day its not a terrible job and then get the tiler in to finsih it of... alterantive if you have the ceiling height.. lay them on top.. and trim the doors

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/01/2006 - 17:00

I recently replaced the ugly tiles in a number of rooms with hand-made cotto. There is a wide selection in my area of Umbria & there should be an even wider one in yours. I was able to source cotto made in Romania at 18 euros a sq metre & finer quality ones for my kitchen at 35 per sq metre. Ask around, even use the tourist office to ask where to find the right kind of shop & I'm sure you will find a wider selection.

Lavender

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 03:31

Thanks LF and A ,that's really helpful. This forum has been really helpful generally and has solved a number of little problems.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 07:05

Hi there!
We live in Tunbridge Wells and have a small house near Bagni di Lucca / Barga!
Anyway, we replaced some floors last year - we did it all ourselves as we had a small budget. We bought cheap cotto from a builders yard in gallicano, for 13 euros a sq metre, althought there is a shop near Diecimo, on the main road there, called Pieroni, they have a much better selection. They have a large showroom, I guess you should find what you want..
We bought a hammer drill and lifted the tiles ourselves! The tile laying is the easiest part! so long as you use batons to get it all straight. The worst part is cleaning the residue cement and grout from the cotto - it takes a few goes with acid, and it's pretty back-breaking. We bought all the chemicals from Brico, the HG branded products are also available in the UK and we had already used them for a couple of slate floors. The Italian brand is called Madras and the list of products is endless! translation of the info on the bottles can be 'fun'! Once cleaned up, you have various choices for sealing / polishing. We used a HG sealant, not our preferred one (tight budget) it's slightly satin, but they also do a matt one. Fired earth suggest linseed oil, Brico sells this too. I think it looks better, but it isn't as well protected perhaps.
We put several coats of sealant on before it stopped just soaking in!! It's a long job, but we saved a fortune doing it ourselves, and we got what we wanted.
Anyway, good luck, if you want any more info, we might be able to help.
Sue