Kitchen · DIY guide
How to install a tiled splashback
Tiling a splashback is well within reach for a careful first-timer. The reason this guide is longer than most is that a kitchen splashback is the one DIY tiling job with live electrical outlets in the middle of it, and in Victoria that part is not yours under any circumstances.
Tiling is legal to DIY — the electrical work around it is not
Checked as at September 2026. Rules and prices change — confirm anything you are about to act on.
What you need
- Tiles plus 10–15% for cuts and breakages
- Notched trowel, tile adhesive suited to the substrate
- Tile cutter or wet saw, and a hole saw for power points
- Spacers, spirit level, straight batten, pencil
- Grout, float, sponges, silicone for the benchtop junction
Step by step
Set out from the most visible line
Do not start from the benchtop and work up — benchtops are rarely dead level. Find your most visible horizontal (usually the underside of the overhead cabinets), and set out so you get a full tile there and the cut at the bench, hidden behind the silicone line.
Screw a temporary batten as your first course
Level a straight batten across the wall and rest your first row on it. This stops the whole job creeping downhill. Remove it and cut the bottom row in last.
Plan the cuts around power points before you spread any adhesive
Dry-lay the run on the floor and mark where the power points land. Try to avoid a cut that leaves a sliver less than a third of a tile wide — shift your starting point instead.
Spread small sections and comb properly
Cover about half a square metre at a time. Comb the adhesive in one direction with the notched trowel and press each tile in with a slight twist. Check with the level every few tiles.
Cut around the outlets with a hole saw or nibblers
Do not tile around live outlets yourself. Have your electrician take the faceplates off and make the points safe before you start, then tile, then have them refit — that is the sequence a tiler uses. Faceplates cover a few millimetres of tolerance so the cut does not need to be perfect, but it does need to clear the mounting block.
Grout and silicone the junction
Grout after the adhesive has cured for at least 24 hours. The joint between the splashback and the benchtop must be silicone, not grout — it is a movement joint.
The electrical work is not DIY. Not any of it.
Victoria does not permit homeowners to do their own electrical work — there is no minor-work exemption, no value threshold and no exception for 'just moving it out a few millimetres'. Changing a light globe is roughly where the line sits.
A splashback almost always involves at least one of these, and every one is licensed work:
- Removing and refitting a power point so it sits proud of the new tile thickness
- Relocating a switch or outlet
- Any under-cabinet lighting, including plug-in strips that get hardwired
- Removing the faceplates and making the outlets safe before tiling, and refitting them afterwards
The practical sequence that works: get the electrician to remove the faceplates and make the outlets safe before you tile, do the tiling yourself, then have them come back to refit everything onto the new surface with the correct spacers. Two short visits, and you should receive a Certificate of Electrical Safety for the work. Read the Victorian rules if you want the full picture.
Measure the gap properly before you buy anything
The standard gap between benchtop and overhead cabinets is around 600mm, but almost no kitchen is truly square. Measure at both ends and in the middle. A variation of five or six millimetres across a run is common in an older Melbourne home and it changes how you set out the tiles.
Work out your layout on paper before you open a box. The two rules that matter: avoid a sliver of a cut tile at either end, and try not to land a cut edge in the middle of the cooktop where the eye goes. It is usually better to start with a full tile centred on the cooktop and let the cuts fall at the ends.
Buy 10 to 15% more tile than the area needs. Cuts, breakages and one badly judged nip add up faster than people expect, and a second box from a different batch will not match.
Preparing the wall
Clean off cooking grease — the same invisible film that ruins cabinet painting also stops adhesive bonding. Sugar soap, then rinse.
If you are tiling over old tiles, that can work provided they are sound and well adhered, but check every one by tapping. Any that sound hollow have to come off, and if several do, take the lot back to the substrate. Tiling over a drummy tile guarantees a failure that takes your new tiles with it.
Fill any holes, sand flush, and prime the wall. A splashback is not a wet area in the sense a shower is and does not require a waterproof membrane, but it does need a clean, sound, primed surface.
Setting out, and the batten trick
Do not assume the benchtop is level — measure it. If it is not, and you use it as your reference, every joint drifts and it becomes glaringly obvious by the far end of the run.
Fix a temporary straight batten across the wall at your first course line, checked with a spirit level. Tile off the batten, let the adhesive set, then remove it and cut the bottom row to fit the benchtop's actual profile. It sounds like extra work and it is the difference between an amateur and a professional-looking result.
Adhesive, notching and buttering
Use a wall tile adhesive suited to your tile — some large-format and stone tiles need a specific product, and glass mosaics need a white adhesive or the colour shows through.
Spread with a notched trowel held at a consistent angle, in areas small enough that the adhesive is still wet when the tile goes on. If it has skinned over, scrape it off and start that patch again — a tile pressed into skinned adhesive is a hollow tile.
For anything larger than a small mosaic, back-butter each tile as well. It takes seconds and it is what fills the voids behind a tile — voids that later crack a tile when someone leans a pan against it.
Cutting around outlets, and the mistake to avoid
Cut-outs around power points are the fiddliest part. Measure from a fixed tile edge rather than from the wall, mark the tile face, and cut with a grinder and a diamond blade or a tile nipper for small nibbles. Cut wet where you can — a wet saw, or a grinder with an on-tool water feed. Dry-cutting tile with an angle grinder throws respirable crystalline silica, which is the most serious hazard on this job and the one nobody talks about. If you must cut dry, wear a P2 respirator at minimum plus eye and hearing protection, work outside, and keep everyone else away from the dust.
The mistake worth naming: cutting the hole exactly to the outlet box. Leave a couple of millimetres of clearance. The faceplate covers it, and a tile cut too tight will crack the first time the box moves or the wall shifts.
Grouting and the silicone joints
Wait for the adhesive to cure fully — usually 24 hours, longer in a cold kitchen — before grouting. Grouting early drags tiles out of alignment.
Then, exactly as in a bathroom: the joint where the tile meets the benchtop is silicone, not grout. Benchtops move, expand and get leaned on. A rigid grout line there will crack, and then water gets behind the splashback at the one point where it will do the most damage to your cabinetry. Same for internal corners. See the silicone guide for technique — it is identical.
Behind a gas cooktop, and other clearances
Materials behind and beside a cooktop have clearance requirements, and they differ for gas and electric. Ceramic tile is fine as a surface, but if your plan involves anything else — a timber feature, a laminate panel, an acrylic sheet — check the cooktop manufacturer's clearances before you commit.
Anything involving the gas appliance itself, including moving it to tile behind it, is licensed gas work in Victoria with no exceptions and no dollar threshold. Move the cooktop out and you are into a trade's job, not yours.
Common mistakes
- Starting from an unlevel benchtop
- Not dry-laying to plan cuts around power points
- Grouting the benchtop junction instead of siliconing it
- Combing the adhesive in circles instead of one direction
- Tiling right up to a cooktop without checking the required clearance
Questions people ask
Can I tile over my existing splashback tiles?
Often yes, if every tile is sound and well adhered — tap them all. You will gain wall thickness, which means the power points need refitting with spacers by an electrician, and the ends of the run will need a neat edge trim.
Do I need to waterproof behind a splashback?
Not in the way a shower requires. A splashback is not classed as a wet area in that sense. What it does need is a clean, sound, primed substrate and a silicone joint where it meets the benchtop.
What about glass or acrylic instead of tile?
A single glass panel is a clean result and it is a measure-and-template job for a supplier, not a DIY one — the cut-outs have to be exact and the panel is toughened after cutting. Acrylic is cheaper and has clearance limits near a cooktop.
Can I move the power point myself if I don't touch the wiring?
No. Removing and refitting a faceplate, extending a box, or anything else touching that installation is electrical work, which in Victoria is licensed with no homeowner exemption.
How long does the whole job take?
For a first-timer on a standard kitchen run: a day to prepare and set out, a day to tile, then grout the following day. Add the electrician's two short visits either side.
When to stop and call someone
Anything electrical, anything involving the gas cooktop, and any tile that sounds hollow when you tap it. The first two are licensed work in Victoria; the third means the wall underneath needs sorting before a single new tile goes on.
This guide is general information, not advice for your particular house. Rules change — check the current position with the Building and Plumbing Commission, Energy Safe Victoria and WorkSafe Victoria before you rely on it. Plumbing, gas and electrical work must be done by a licensed practitioner. If your home was built or last renovated before 1990, assume asbestos until it is ruled out — see what a strip-out finds.