Hi guys.

I'm looking to tile the floors and walls in my bathrooms. I was looking at stone products and am a little confused.

Shop1 said trevertine(sp) is best and not marble as its easily damaged. Didn,t really fancy marble anyway.

Shop2 said trevertine is softer than marble and so more easily damaged. They threw in a curve ball by suggesting granite. Said its the toughest and because of that comes in the thinnest tiles.

Anyone help?

Also shop1 had some fantastic looking slate. Whats the pros/cons of that?

 

Whats wrong with lino

 

Is that a type of granite?

 

sounds cold

 

?underfloor heating

 

Get yourself a pair of good old slippers

 

Travertine and marble are both calcite (Calcium carbonate) so they should be pretty similar hardnesses. They all get broken if you drop something hard and heavy on them. Just pick a pattern that you like. Slate tends to be very hard, like granite.

 

Thanks Bub. Is it a major problem to cut slate or granite tiles? Will the builder kick up a fuss?

 

Travertine is softer than marble, but generally has a rustic and pitted appearance with the pits often filled in with a kind of resin. Granite will be harder still and I think you could probably get away with 10mm thick floor tiles, but in the context of a bathroom I don't really think the relative hardness of the stone should be an issue as far as damage is concerned. You'd need to drop a pretty heavy weight such as a hammer on them to cause damage.

Slate...I think looks nice as a kitchen floor, paricularly in combination with nice light units such as maple, but not sure about a bathroom application.

To cut slate or granite you'll need diamond edged cutting wheels, and a cutting table to get decent straight edges. So more involved than cutting ceramics, but a proper tiler should have the necessary equipment.

Gary.

 

Go for Vinyl. You can get some realistic looking tiles on vinyl and it will last a life time and well waterproof.

 

Nononono! Having fake stuff does wrong things to your psyche! Have real stone, real wood, real metal. Everything else is bollox and ruins your well-being.

 

Unless of course you aren't bothered what your neighbours think.

 

That would depend on whether the neighbours had ever set foot in your house...

If you want to have plastic, then you ought to have plastic. But it ought to look like plastic, not amphibolite or oak or bioclastic limestone.

 

Yes it would depend on just how sociable you are.

 

Thanks.

Gary, how does one tell the difference between quality with travertine ie it varies from £25-£50sq/m?

 

We put marble tiles in our first bathroom (En-Suite) and they look fantastic. BUT they are very very cold in the morning and we've broken a couple of things that were dropped on them.

We put karndean tiles in the main bathroom. Look 98% as good and are 100% better in the real world. things dont break and they're not ice cold to touch.

 

TBH with travertine I'm not sure. When I was looking at marble, this page http://www.atstone.co.uk/grades.htm had various grade classifications for marble on it.

 

Thanks Gary

 

Deep

I have granite floors in my bathroom.
I would NEVER do it again.
You have to set your underfloor heating to come on at the minimum 30mins before you expect to go into the bathroom, morning and evening.
Which ends up costing you in electricity.
When you get home late after training/night out etc and go for your evening shower the floor is always cold if you haven't set the timer or told the missus to "turn the floor on".
Marble walls, yes. Floor ... no.
Also takes a lot of looking after even if you get the marble treated don't let it stay too wet for too long or you have a nightmare cleaning it.

 

Thats no different from ceramic tiles. If I dont have the heating on then they are ice cold. Havent noticed much increase in electricity usage and we have kitchen floor on pretty much 24*7.

Simon.

 

Simon, what do you have on the kitchen floor? Ceramic or granite/stone? I would presume stone takes longer to heat up and then also would hold the heat longer?

 

Ceramic slate effect so pretty thick but probably take less time to heat up than marble, granite etc.

Tbh I dont ever turn it "off" just set the timer to drop the temp whilst we at work. At present I only have it on temp setting 4.5 out of 10 to take the chill from the tiles. With it on 8 in the middle of winter we didnt even need the radiator on in the kitchen.

Simon.

 

Thanks Simon