The Tylow is a simple enough idea that aims to replace the long established tile spacer. Whilst the spacer has been around for a few years in many different sizes they all come back to pretty much the same design style; a white plastic cross.

Some tilers like myself simply use the spacer as a small handle inserted into the grout joints and remove before grouting; others insert the spacer into the intersection of the four tiles believing this to keep the tiles square. Either way the tile spacer is not exactly high tech nor 100% accurate especially with tiles that have uneven sides where the spacer can if not watched fall into low points or ride the high points of the tile edge.



The Tylow is completely different from the spacer in the fact that it's made from a clear acrylic strip that's scored at 50mm intervals. The aim is that you can use the Tylow as either a 900mm continuous strip or break pieces off to the size required. At present the Tylow is only available in 2mm thicknesses which is ideal for wall tiling, but can be doubled up for thicker joints. For £4.69 you get six strips of 900mm which break down into 108 50mm spacers, which are obviously reusable so the initial purchase price would be recouped quickly.

Being clear you can see through to the tiles below to check the perps and used a continuous length it is well suited to uneven tiles where it will ride all the high points to give you a little uniformity.

When I used the Tylows on a small toilet tiling project I found them to work well with 200mm x 150mm tiles, where I used 50mm pieces keeping everything nice and aligned. The Tylows where also easy to remove from the joints; certainly no harder than the traditional tile spacer, adhesive was cleaned off with ease (as long as you don't leave it on for too long, then you'll need to scrape!)

My method of tiling involves me feeling for lippage with neighbouring tiles, I then twist and move the tile into position, by using the Tylow as a complete strip I found I wasn't able to do this, but I think this could be down to my technique. You can still see if there is lippage; I like to feel it rather than see it.

Tiling was certainly quicker with the Tylows as I was only adding two Tylows per tile rather than four spacers to ensure squareness and a lot less fiddly.

Personally I'd like to see some more thicknesses available with maybe a different colour for each thickness or at least a 3mm for floors (BS minimum for floors), then you could create a 5mm quite easily. Hopefully they'll get their fledgling product out to the masses and be able to increase the size range and bring the price down a little (tilers are tight).

From now on I'll be using these as a 2mm spacer until they get some more thicknesses available as I reckon you'd lose the speed increase gained by doubling / tripling up, I just hope that other tilers will give them a fighting chance as I know all too well how stubborn and unwilling to change tilers can be, even when the gains are staring them in the face.

Excellent little product from two brothers who are ex-tilers, for more details see http://www.tylows.co.uk

Review by Dave M. Carr
[e] dave@davemcarr.co.uk
[w] www.tiling.davemcarr.co.uk
Professional Floor Wall Tiler Nottingham

Tags: tylow, reviews, tools