Natural Floor Tile

If you’re interested in Natural Stone and Pebble flooring installed, you’ll be impressed with the wide variety of options to pick from.  In order to pick the best type of natural stone tile and pebbles for your project, we must consider the type of environment the project will be in.  If you’re looking to install this flooring in moist, damp, humid, or wet areas, you’ll need something that has a relatively low rate of absorption. If you’re installing these in an area where there’s significantly higher foot traffic for example, you would need flooring that handles potential staining and wear and tear.  Some areas like commercial or industrial, would need to have really durable materials installed.  In a wet environment, we typically go with something that’s more impervious to fluid and spills unless traction is the main concern (around pools like Travertine).  Most of these types of tiling systems are much less labor intensive than the rest of them.  Vitreous materials have normal absorption rate, and likely suitable for less occupied rooms like bedrooms and closets.

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Suitable for indoor or outdoor use, Natural tiles are, usually installed in areas where there’s low to medium foot traffic. The Semi-vitreous characteristics of these floors means they’re less absorbent, and typically will require more maintenance than average Porcelain or Ceramic tile. It’s perfectly acceptable install semi-vitreous natural tile in areas of low moisture based on its semi-absorptive nature.  Non-vitreous materials are among the highest levels of absorptive materials. These types of floor tiles should be installed away from wet, damp, or moist areas. In Gilbert, we’re able install this material outdoors because it rarely rains, but we’ll advise customers to use this primarily indoors.

Natural Stone Tile Installer in Glibert AZ

Sandstone is likely to be the most porous type of material. This natural stone tile, is also highly prone to oxidizing over the years, and oxidizing can become a failure point in the long-term integrity of any outdoor tiling system.  This oxidization will occur when the Sandstone is exposed to the elements for a long period of time.  Being in Gilbert, we’re much less likely to stress about anything like this because water is the primary culprit for the oxidization of materials.  We always recommend choosing a more dense material that’s a lot less absorptive when installing tiling outside, but we’ll install sandstone both outdoors and indoors.  Keep in mind, the foot traffic will have to be very low in these areas.  These non-vitreous materials are generally more susceptible to soaking in the rain, desert dirt, and desert dust.  Also, we need to remember that the natural stone with a very low coefficient of friction could cause hazardous slipping and falling environments. We recommend not installing these around pools, downspouts, spas, or hot tubs.

Tile Installation Gilbert supplies only Grade A tiling for our projects unless otherwise specified. Consideration is made for environments that are economically appropriate for a lower Grade B style.

Only the highest standard for tiling is considered Grade A tiling.  Grade A means your tile will be as close to perfect as the manufacturing facilities can make them.  In order for it to qualify for this category there can be no chips, cracks, scratches, surface blemishes, or dimensional issues allowed for a Grade A classified tile.

Grade B may be supplied based on availability and requirements for your project.  Grade B could potentially be acceptable if: It’s in places that have a higher probability of acquiring flooring chips immediately after installation, scrapes, or scratches like industrial areas. These cost savings are realized by customers in those cases.

Such aesthetically pleasing aspects of having Natural Stone installed:

Natural stone tiling is a thing of beauty.  Each stone is 100% unique in its own way, and it creates a feeling and connection with Mother Nature by blending the outdoor environment with the indoors.  These types of tiling have the least impact on the environment, and there’s always a connection between the location of natural stone installation and the place it originated from.  It’s typically the more dense Slates, Quartzites, and Granites that are ideal for areas around pools, spas, wet, moist, or damp environments.  Each natural stone element has a different maintenance schedule than the other ones, and they’ll all be subject to some type of sealing or pretreatment process while it’s being used. Natural stone is prone to cracking around higher impact areas, but we’ll make sure it’s installed correctly when we set them.  Tile Installation Gilbert has the best choices for your project, and we’ll be sure to help you make the best choice.  Call us today to schedule your appointment soon!