MAJOR SCORE….almost

Four hundred square feet of 1902 encaustic tile free for the taking. A beautiful multicolored boarder with a field of 2-inch hex tiles. All free and ready for the taking. The only problem is, someone repaired the floor with a Portland cement base grout.

The 2-inch white encaustic hex tiles were made by Cambridge tile. These are the same people who made my 1895 fireplace tiles. The boarder was made by A.E.T. (American Encaustic Tile). I think both companies are (or were) located in Ohio.

There is a building in Old Town that was recently vacated by a kitchen wares business. The new owner thought the floor was too far gone for the upscale dinner house he wants to open. I had mentioned to some friends about my bathroom and ideas for tile. They told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…..no, wait, that’s an old commercial. Anyway, anybody who has spoken to me the last two months knows I’m working on my bathroom and when word came that an old tile floor was going to be ripped out I got a call.

I had great hopes for this tile. The floor was in bad shape, there is no denying that. Still, there was plenty of good tile to be had. I only need 100 square feet, or less, for the bathroom and mud room. There should have been plenty.

In days of old, they laid tile floors in a mortar bed of a lime based cement. The lime cement is very forgiving. It holds the tile fine, but not to the point that the tile can never be recovered. The lime based mortar moves with the building as the building settles and ages. Portland cement based mortars are not forgiving at all. They will hold on to the tile until the end of time.

At some point, someone regrouted the floor with a Portland cement based grout. As I tried to pull up the tile it flaked and chipped at the edges when it tried to separate from the grout. This first picture is of the underside of the tile.



These two tiles had some writing in pencil on the bottom so I shoved them in my pocket. I didn’t clean them at all and that is pencil writing from 1902. The tile just lifts away from the old mortar bed with a little persuasion and is left in almost ready to use condition. The writing says “Seconds Della” on one and “Seconds {unknown}” on the other. I think the Seconds refers to the quality. I acquired a single 1902 subway tile from the Vance Hotel, also in Old Town, and it is stamped “Second” on the back. I think because of the cost of shipping from the east coast (all the way around So. America) second quality was cheaper and so that’s what we ended up with.





Anyway, above is a shot of the A.E.T. boarder with the Cambridge Field. Notice the narrow grout lines and notice the dark color of the grout. This is not original. That black grout is the Portland cement based grout that was added later.



Here you can see the side of the tile. There is the black grout on top and then the lime mortar on bottom. The lime mortar cleans up easily. The black grout chips the edges of the tile when its removed. And removing it is not easy at all. It’s really too bad. Encaustic tiles costs big bucks today. If that stuff could be salvaged it would go for upwards of $20 a sq ft. Encaustic tile is the same all the way through. It’s like the linoleum of tiles.

Of course, it's possible that the Portland cement based grout is original, but I don’t think so. In some places there were major repairs made to the floor - apparently this place was a saloon for many decades - when the repairs where made and the tiles were re-laid they use a Portland cement based mortar to relay the tiles. Those tiles disintegrated when I tried to remove them. In some cases they couldn't get the tiles to all fit back the way they came out and they used nippers to reshape the tiles. Then they filled in with this black grout. It was under the tiles in places, like they "back-buttered" the reshaped tiles before putting them in.