1 Rob Hawkins volunteered to fit floor tiles to his garage workshop, so BiGDUG sent him 140 Swisstrax plastic tiles. After clearing the floor area and moving large objects over the inspection pit, he started to unpack.
2 Before fitting the floor tiles, Rob wanted to see how they fit together. Two sides of each floor tile have loops that stick out, whereas the other two have recessed pegs, so a peg and a loop need to be joined together.
3 The Swisstrax instructions recommend starting in the front left corner, nearest the door. After laying a couple of tiles down, Rob realised he couldn’t fit them flush to the side wall because of a couple of power cables.
4 He also realised he needed to check those first two floor tiles wouldn’t prevent the garage door from closing, and he needed to add a small plastic ramp piece to the front. After trial-fitting them in position, the garage door was successfully closed.
5 The side of the floor tile that was next to the power cables needed to be trimmed to allow the tile to fit closer to the garage wall (a ¼in gap between the tile and wall is recommended), so a marker pen came in useful.
6 The plastic tiles can be cut with a jigsaw, circular saw or even a band saw, but Rob wondered whether he could use a small rigid wood saw (Tenon saw) and it sliced through the material with ease. Plus, he managed to cut out a curved shape.
7 After trimming a corner off the floor tile, the first two floor tiles and the ramp piece were trial-fitted. The tiles could still be moved a little closer to the wall than shown here, but there’s more on this later.
8 Confident he could simply unclick the floor tiles and start again, Rob decided to trial-fit them all the way down one side of the garage. This side was easy as it could accommodate a two-tile width next to the inspection pit.
9 Rob breathed a sigh of relief when he got to the back of the inspection pit and discovered the floor tiles didn’t need trimming. These type of floor tiles can only be trimmed at the very edges of the flooring – atrimmed edge cannot be joined to another tile.
10 Returning to the front of the garage, the floor tiles were placed across the entrance and the short piece of concrete in front of the inspection pit (these would need to be trimmed as they overlap the pit). The ramp pieces were also added.
11 Rob discovered he cannot stagger the floor tiles or ramp pieces. Their loops and pegs only line up in one position, so he would need to trim the edge off the ramp piece closest to the left corner of the garage (nearest the door).
12 He was now in a bit of a pickle with laying the floor tiles down between the right side of the garage and the inspection pit. Only one full tile could be fitted, meaning he’d need to cut two pieces to f
