Porcelain Tile – The Home Depot Flooring A-Z

What’s beneath your toes (or nonetheless you get all around) is as vital as something when it will come to residence. That’s why this drop, we collaborated with The Dwelling Depot on an A to Z guideline that’ll give you the self-assurance to make flooring options you are going to appreciate. Verify out the A to Z handbook listed here.

Attractiveness and sturdiness can sometimes be at odds when it will come to interiors. Heirloom wool armchairs with hand-embroidered peacocks? Stunning, but very easily weakened. Rubber exercise session tiles in your basement household fitness center? They get the career done, but not precisely what you would set in the dwelling room. Getting that rara avis of solution style that combines pretty with functional is thrilling, and porcelain tile is both.

Designed from a finer, denser clay, and fired at a increased temperature, porcelain is normally harder and fewer porous than other sorts of ceramic tiles. This helps make it suitable for sinks and other toilet fixtures, as properly as flooring — and The Dwelling Depot stocks hundreds of variations, from uncomplicated white penny tiles and subtle squares to remarkable patterns and exquisite marble impersonators. But fashion is not its only distinctive good quality — below are 4 explanations why it sits in a group of its own.

A wet surroundings is no challenge

Good-grained and extremely-sleek, porcelain is far a lot more impervious to h2o than other styles of ceramic tile. When the bulk of ceramic tile gets a glaze that performs to repel h2o, porcelain is the only style that need to have a drinking water absorption price of .5 or decrease as described by the American Culture for Screening and Supplies. This suggests it’s a crystal clear decision for bathrooms, mud rooms, or any house where a far more porous floor could be harmed by repeat publicity to h2o droplets, splashes, or soaked towels still left on the flooring. (Hey, it happens.) Porcelain is also the strongest possibility for any out of doors tiling circumstance — if you’re in an outside-tile-helpful climate zone, that is. (For additional on outdoor flooring, see letter O!)

It is hardier than other tile

Because porcelain is 1 of the most difficult varieties of tile, it’s a go-to for superior-visitors areas. Its superpower is withstanding what ever lifetime throws its way without displaying indications of put on, whether that is attempted scuffings, stain-earning incidents, and dings from dropped dishes. If a chip does pop out, porcelain has a steadfast color during the tile, minimizing the visibility of the destruction. Most other ceramic tiles, on the other hand, have a distinct shade beneath the seen glaze. (Encaustic tile is an exception to this, and to find out much more about it, stop by letter E.)

Of course, staying the toughest tile on the block does occur with some downsides. It is specifically weighty and relatively a lot more tricky to slash than normal ceramic tile, so it can be challenging to put in (but a lot easier than organic stone if that’s the seem you want). And though it follows all the exact same grouting and tile-laying protocol we’ve outlined in letter G, it is significant to promise that the underlayment can assist the fat of the tile by itself (notably if you are functioning on an higher-degree of a setting up or in an more mature household).

There are so numerous patterned solutions

If you’ve determined to use porcelain tile, but also want a geometric sample for included fascination, Jessica Pleasants, venture supervisor at Godwin Household Design in New York Metropolis, cautions from receiving also wild with your Escher-like creation. “It’s vital to consider how the layout is likely to appear in 4 or five years,” she advises, noting that patterns can look dated in a brief amount of time. “If you want to use a geometric sample, go with one thing a little bit a lot more refined that has that geometric glance but is not overly bold.”

It’s a chameleon-like material

Porcelain is also considerably-beloved due to the fact it can mirror pretty much any style of all-natural stone, or even a wood grain, whilst supplying toughness and longevity.

“I believe porcelain tile is a excellent different to marble since it is really much less porous and less difficult to preserve,” claims interior designer Laura Umansky, who enjoys how easy it is to care for porcelain with very simple mopping and cleaning soap-and-water spot therapy.

General contractor Joe Truini used porcelain tile that seems like tumbled granite in just one of his bathrooms. He says the change concerning purely natural stone elements and porcelain copycats comes down to simplicity of installation, uniform tile cuts, and durability. “The downside of purely natural stone is Mother Earth designed it a billion many years in the past, and somebody carved it out of the earth: there are defects in it,” he states. And but, he points out, purely natural stone is typically much much more highly-priced than porcelain. “The [porcelain version] is uniform in energy, thickness, and sizing. It helps make it a lot easier to lay.”