to keep an eye on me while I tiled their hearth. I’ve had them hide around corners to watch me, then run in to take a look each time I leave to mix mortar. No worries. I’m in their space, it will be their project when it’s finished, and they are paying me good money. They sometimes put blue tape on places they want to talk about. These days, I receive calls and emails from all sorts of clients across the U.S. who have ques- tions about how they should judge their tile contractor’s finished work. These questions most often come from homeowners, com- mercial building owners or man- agers, architects and designers. They are often accompanied by photos taken through a macro lens held a few inches from the surface of the project. I received one such question that we shared with you along with my response, in the June 27, 2017 edition of TileLetter Weekly (http://tileletter.com/2017/06/ ask-the-experts-june-2017/). This question came from a tile instal- lation contractor who had just finished a job at a renowned office complex. The contractor was try- ing to respond to an architect’s concerns about a few very small chips in a new vertical tile instal- lation. The contractor asked me what was reasonable in this case. What is a reasonable viewing dis- tance for this sort of thing? The NTCA’s technical staff bases the training we do and the answers we provide on American tile industry standards. These are the bedrock of solid, high-per- forming tile installations. When it comes to questions about finished installations we are not consul- tants who are on scene with our straight edges and lippage cards, but we do try to provide a good response. Until recently, questions about reasonable inspection of finished tile work were complicated to answer. An array of standards had to be reviewed and compared to the final installation and questions were difficult to resolve objec- tively. Tile contractors had to rely on their mastery of the standards and communications skills but were sometimes beholden to the subjectivity of the owner or the owner’s representative. TCNA Handbook saves the day I am happy to report that with the publication of the 2017 edi- tion of the Tile Council of North America (TCNA) Handbook for C e r a m i c , Glass and Stone Tile Installation the tile contractor has been p r o v i d e d with clear guidelines BY THE BOOK –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 92 TileLetter | December 2017