MAPEI hosts Crossville for Thin Porcelain Panel Training

If you've attended any of my Thin Tile presentations at Coverings or Surfaces or Total Solutions Plus or as a CTDA Webinar or an NTCA Webinar or if you've read any of my articles on the topic in Construction Specifier or Tile Letter, you know that I'm a big advocate of the tile industry coming together to 'demystify' thin tile. In fact, the live presentation is done with a tile manufacturer (Noah Chitty from Crossville), a tool supplier (Ben Szell from European Tile Masters) and an installation products manufacturer (me) in the room. We do it this way because thin tile installation is a process that is much bigger than any one of us.

Unfortunately, Noah, Ben and I can't fly to every location in North America to train every installer on thin tile. To magnify all of our reach, MAPEI has put together a collaborative training approach. Using MAPEI's training facilities or distributors locations, we are partnering up with thin tile manufacturers and tool manufacturers to train installers, estimators, architects, and other interested industry partners in this relatively new product.

Last week (August 10th and 11th), we hosted Crossville here in Deerfield Beach at our corporate headquarters for two, one-day sessions on thin tiles.  40 people went through our class and will now be listed on the Crossville website as trained installers.  Two years ago when we had thin tile trainings, it was common to have a room full of people that had heard of the product but never seen it, or maybe weren't even sure what we meant by 'thin tile'.  At these trainings, most of the participants had seen the product, many had installed it, and all were very eager to learn the correct way to handle and install it.

A thin tile training starts with roughly an hour of classroom training.  The classroom portion allows us to set the stage for what we will be presenting when we get to the 'hands-on' segement and also to explain some bigger picture concepts.  For example, a great deal of testing with the Universal Floor Tester goes into the product recommendations we make for the tile.  By explaining the method for narrowing down our product recommendations before we go to see the Tester in action, it allows participants to learn both the 'why' and the 'how' of our product testing.  Because coverage is such a major consideration with thin tile, we also showed NTCA's 'Trowel and Error' video.  After the classroom section concludes, we went to our testing annex to begin the 'hands-on' portion of the training.

The next six hours of the session are hands-on demonstrations.  Starting from the reason for needing fork extenders (12' long crates anyone?), to a demonstration of using suction cup racks for handling, to the proper application of mortar (in this case, our Ultralite S2 Thin Tile Mortar), to actually setting panels on both floors and walls, our participants get to try their hand at any and all of it.  After a long but interesting day, we all re-assemble in the classroom to show some jobsite photos, share experiences, and make sure we've covered everything on the checklist.

MAPEI is scheduling more events like this across the country and we encourage you to contact your sales rep for the one closest to you.  By working together with manufacturers, tool suppliers, MMSA (Materials & Methods Standards Assciation) and other industry professionals, we can face the challenges of thin tile panels head on and educate the industry on how to do it successfully.