3" tile versus 6" tile

[eljefe281]

I always thought that I would prefer 6" waterline tile (less grout).

Unfortunately, so far, my wife and I have only been able to find 3" tile that we like.

Any opinions on the use of 3" tile along the waterline, on the face of a raised wall (raised bond beam), and around the outside of a raised spa (raised 6")?

Thanks in advance.

[GraceByDesign]

I don't really have a comment on the tile itself, but I will say this: Buy the tile you like.

We recently moved into a new house, and I agonized over the knobs to put on the cabinets. Knobs? Pulls? A combo? Go cheap? Splurge? :eek: We ended up with our original choice, which cost quite a bit more than I had wanted to spend. Now I hardly notice them. I mentioned that to DH a few weeks ago, and he said if we could have settled for a different one to save money, I would see them all the time and wish I had bought what I really wanted in the first place.

So buy what you like! Seems to me that if you follow the methods on this board, you will not have a lot of extra cleaning, so the amount of grout lines is a moot point!!

[Simmons99]

Neighbors have 3" tile on bond beam raised part - they have had it installed for about 8 months without any problems. Yep - you will have more grout.

[mshumack]

It's likely to cost you a little more to go with the smaller tiles because the gunite needs to be floated behind the tile (more acurately) for the smaller tiles. This additional labor costs more. With the 6" tiles the irregularities can be hidden better - they just glob on more motar behond the tiles to level them but with the smaller tiles the wall surface needs to be smoother/level before the tiles can go on. I also like the smaller tiles because they make raised wall section look taller.

[DavidD]

The 3" will probably make the pool look bigger:D

Dave

[MarkC]

My builder told me unless you have a large pool with big radius's the 3" tiles are easier to get to conform to the curves. The only spot I can think of that would be a problem is the swim out where the radius is tight.

[Simmons99]

We have 6" tiles in our spa - it has a relatively tight radius - only a 4-person spa.

[eljefe281]

Thanks, everybody! Good stuff.

[jrouse1]

We have just the opposite problem you have. For our renovation we need to use 3" tile and we would prefer 6". Our pool was originally built in 1970 and it's a freeform shape with a lot of tight curves. We didn't want them to have to cut that many tiles, so we spent a couple weeks looking for a 3" tile we like. I think we found one today. Now I just have to make a final choice on the Pebble Sheen color, and they can get started.

Our builder is going to use a matching grout to minimize the obvious lines in the tiles. Right now we have small (aprox. 2") dark blue tile with formerly bright white grout. We have a lot of trees, so the grout NEVER looks clean!:mad: