Choosing Flooring: Tile

Tile continues to grow in popularity as a floor covering, with good reason.

Tile has a natural, handcrafted look that's durable and easy to care for.
Tile works well in areas with high foot traffic, and it's especially suited to entry areas where water and dirt enter the house.
Design patterns are limitless when using all of the possible combinations of size, texture and color.
You can further expand your creative toolbox with hand painted tiles and colored grouts.

By combining various geometric layout and numerous trim tiles your design options are practically limitless.

Selecting Tile

Finding a tile you like is easy. Just make sure it's the right one for your floor and choose a tile that's rated for the area you where you plan to install it. Entryways need a hard, abrasion-resistant, moisture-proof tile. Baths require a moisture-proof non-slip material. Slip-resistant tile is treated with an abrasive material to "rough up" the smooth surface for safety. Some tiles are rated for indoor or outdoor use only, others can be used in either application.

Floor tile is usually 1/2" to 3/4" thick, manufactured in squares measuring 4"x4" up to 24"x 24". Other shapes, such as octagonal and hexagonal are available. (Wall tile is thinner and comes in squares from 3"x 3" up to 6"x 6".)

Mosaic tiles are two inches square or smaller and can be installed individually. Mosaic tiles are also available in pre-mounted paper or fabric mesh sheets.

Tile Ratings

All tile feels hard, but some types of tile are actually harder than others. Tile is rated by a series of standardized tests. The tests evaluate a tile's relative hardness (the Moh scale), its ability to stand up to wear and the percentage of water absorbed.

The Porcelain Enamel Institute hardness ratings are:

Group I - Light Traffic: residential bathroom floors where bare or stocking feet are the norm.
Group II - Medium Traffic: home interiors where little abrasion occurs. Don't use in kitchens or entries.
Group III - Medium-Heavy Traffic: any home interior.
Group IV - Heavy Traffic: homes or light to medium commercial areas.
Group V- Extra Heavy Traffic: use it anywhere.

These ratings are important, but don't get too bogged down in analysis — they serve to help you find the right tile for your application.

Pay closer attention to the ratings test that measures the percentage of water absorbed, or porosity. A tile's porosity is critical especially when choosing tile for kitchens and baths, since these areas need moisture proof flooring. Porous tile should not be used outdoors where cold weather produces freeze/thaw cycles. The classifications for the porosity of tile are: Impervious (least absorbent), Vitreous, Semi-vitreous, and Non-vitreous (most absorbent).

The hardness of tile is affected by the firing process. Usually, the longer and hotter the firing, the harder the tile will be. The raw tile material, called bisque, is either single-fired or double-fired.

For single-fired tiles, the glaze is applied to the raw material and baked once in a kiln.
Double-fired tiles are thicker. Raw material is baked a second time after additional color or decoration is added.

Installing Tile

On the do-it-yourself project scale, installing tile ranges from easy to challenging. Tiles usually require some cutting to fit. They're applied with mortar or other adhesives, followed by a final application of grout.

As with all types of tile, areas that require precision cuts may be more difficult. Flooring presents its own set of concerns. Since tile is not a resilient material, it requires a very stable subsurface. Subfloors frequently have to be built up to the thickness required for tile flooring.

See the chart below for some common (and some less common) floor tile.

Sunday, 3 January 2010

Match the floor to room's purpose

BY NEIL WERTHEIMER

FRESH HOME

Most of us take what's underfoot for granted, be it tile, carpeting or wood. But homes are made up of spaces with specific functions, so why shouldn't those spaces have specific flooring, too? Here's what to put down, where and why:

Coddle your teenager in the den. Teens spend tons of time roughhousing, sitting and spilling drinks on the floor, so it's best to put down something that's easily washable, doesn't show footprints and can be replaced, square by square. A great and often overlooked option is glue-down 2-by-2-foot commercial carpet squares, which are economical and can be replaced easily if disaster strikes (and it will).

Hardworking home office spaces. If you have a home office, odds are that you've also got a desk, office chair, casters and bookcases, and all of them are rough on flooring and can cause denting and scratching. This is a room that would do best with laminate flooring, which is sturdy, good-looking, highly durable, easy to install and often inexpensive.

Soft and cushy in the man cave. Workshop flooring may be an afterthought, but it shouldn't be, given how long you're often standing on it. Choose a flooring that is easy on your feet and back, such as interlocking tiles of recycled PVC or rubber. Most systems come with a snap-on border that can be instantly installed to define a space.

Be playful in the playroom. Play areas for toddlers and young children need cushioned flooring that's simple to maintain. Choose something that's fun, colorful, attractive and that can grow with them, like brightly hued, resilient playroom or playground tiles. They're inexpensive, safe and as the little ones grow up, you can change the look of the space by simply changing the color of the tiles, either a few at a time or all at once.

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