Are you thinking about resurfacing your home? If that old carpet is sodden with grime and ready for the rubbish dump, then it’s time to consider upgrading your floor with tiling. Tiles are a popular flooring choice, offering the homeowner multiple benefits over carpets or wood.
There’s plenty of variety available with floor tiles, and they offer a cost-effective solution with many practical benefits. Accidents happen around the home, and if you’ve ever spilt your morning coffee on the carpet, then you know how much of a pain it is to clean it up. With tiles, you don’t have to concern yourself with spills staining the surface, pick up a mop, and the stain disappears with a few strokes.
However, with so many styles, colours, and materials available in tiles, choosing the right tiles for your home or office can leave you feeling overwhelmed at the options on offer.
At Atlas Ceramics, we offer a full range of flooring tiles, along with the expertise you need to make an informed purchase decision on the best tiles for your application. Check through the list of questions and answers below to help you with selecting your new tiles.
Floor tiles come in a variety of materials; here are our top choices for your home or office.
Ceramic – These tiles come in two categories, porcelain, and non-porcelain. Porcelain tiles have fewer impurities and imperfections than non-porcelain counterparts, due to the clay being less porous than non-porcelain varieties. This feature gives porcelain tiles a surface that’s impervious to moisture.
However, porcelain tiles are more expensive than the non-porcelain type, and typically retail for 40-per cent less. Porcelain tiles are better for high traffic areas, as they clean easily and have a harder surface than the non-porcelain type.
Travertine – This naturally occurring limestone, features a porous surface with a rough texture. The pits occur due to organic matter and bubbles trapped in the stone. These characteristics give travertine tiles a wide variety of colours to suit any room in the home or office. After sealing, these tiles are excellent for wet surfaces, such as the bathroom and around the pool, due to the anti-slip nature of the stone.
Marble – Marble may be pricey, but it’s an excellent way to upgrade the value of your home and provide it with an elegant appearance. Marble is available in a wide variety of colours and is an incredibly durable material.
Slate – As one of the oldest flooring materials available, slate comes in a variety of colours, with veins of colour running through the surface. As a result of the veining, each slate tile is unique, providing the room with a custom tiling experience. Slate tiles also require sealing, and they may not be suitable for high-traffic areas of the home, due to the need for resealing after wear.
Faux wood – These tiles have the beauty of wood, combined with the strength and durability of ceramic.
Granite – Similar to marble, granite tiles are relatively expensive, but they make up for their cost with stunning visuals. Granite also features veining, which gives each granite floor a unique visual characteristic.
Onyx – This calciferous and translucent material is very similar to marble in appearance, but lacks the same durability. Suitable for low-traffic rooms and bedrooms where you want to make the interior of the room pop.
Quartzite – This attractive, durable, and non-slip material is ideal for high-traffic areas around the home. Quartzite is an excellent addition to pathways, driveways, and around the pool. When honed with a smooth finish, quartzite tiles are suitable for the kitchen.
Mosaic – These tiny tiles are the favourite of decorators around the world. When laid together, they provide a stunning visual impact. Mosaic tiles come in a wide variety of materials, from glass to stone, or ceramic.
Sandstone – This material is among the most versatile in terms of use. You can lay sandstone tiles in any room of the home, as well as around the patio and pool for a non-slip surface. Sandstone requires sealing, so we recommend you don’t choose them for high-traffic areas such as the entrance or kitchen.
Choosing the best floor tiles for your home is a challenging experience when you consider the range and variety on offer. Most homeowners go with ceramic tiles, due to their low-cost, durability, and resistance to heat and cold.
Porcelain tiles are the best choice for bathrooms and the kitchen, due to their strength and water-resistance. Non-porcelain tiles suit the lounge, entrances, and bedrooms, due to their cost-efficiency and wide range of colours and designs.
However, if you have the budget available, and are looking for tiles to give your home a facelift, then materials like granite, marble, and onyx provide outstanding visuals, while still retaining strength and durability.
Sandstone, slate, and travertine are ideal for use in low-traffic areas of the home, as well as the patio, and around the pool. These tiles provide a non-slip surface that is far superior to porcelain or granite.
When selecting floor tiles for your home, you need to take into account your décor, as well as the foot traffic through the room, and your intended application. We recommend that you take some time browsing through the options available on our site.
Expert opinion is invaluable when selecting your tiles, and at Atlas Ceramics, our team has over 25-years of experience in providing the best tiling solutions available. It’s vital that you choose to purchase your tiles from a reputable dealer. Many companies offering tiles focus on delivering the cheapest solution possible, without taking into account durability or styling.
Your tiles will last for decades to come, to ensure that you get the best advice available before making your final purchase decision. Can you imagine spending your hard-earned money on a set of tiles for your kitchen or living room, only to find that they don’t suit the theme or look of the room after installation?
This type of mistake can cost you hundreds of pounds, leaving you with the tough decision of pulling them up or leaving them and living with your error. At Atlas Ceramics, we pride ourselves on providing you with the expert advice you need to choose the right tiles for your home.
This question is subjective, and the answer differs from home to home, depending on your needs and the required outcome of the tiling. We recommend ceramics as the best all-around performer for any room in the house.
Porcelain is an excellent material for areas that require easy cleaning and durability, while non-porcelain tiles are the best choice for decorative purposes.
Areas around the home, such as the entrance, kitchen and bathrooms require a durable tile that’s easy to clean and requires as little maintenance as possible. Porcelain tiles have all the properties in terms of durability and strength to ensure that they last a lifetime.
Avoid using materials like slate, sandstone, and travertine in these areas. These tiles are porous and require sealing to avoid moisture damage. After a few years, you’ll need to reseal the floor to ensure they don’t get damaged by moisture.
We love the look and feel of granite, and we think that’s it’s an excellent material for surfacing the kitchen and walls. However, granite flooring can be a pain to maintain, as it also requires sealing to avoid moisture damage. Granite is far more robust a material than ceramic, and you can expect less chipping and cracking.
If you have the budget available and can afford marble, then you won’t find a more attractive material available for your new tiling. Marble is another porous material, and you’ll need to seal the tiles after fitment to avoid water damage. However, it is similar to granite in terms of strength and durability, and the veining provides a unique look to your floor.
We love the feeling of hardwood flooring under our feet. It provides the room with a warm feel that looks both rustic and attractive. However, hardwood flooring is far more expensive than a set of ceramic tiles, and it requires a lot more maintenance.
Sanding and sealing a hardwood floor can take hours, and when you consider the labour charges involved in laying a hardwood floor, ceramic tiles are a far less expensive option for your home. If you have your heart set on a wooden floor, make a compromise and select a set of faux wood tiles instead.
When calculating the cost of tiling your home or office, we recommend that you budget for a price of between £20-£25 per square metre for ceramics. Granite and other specialised materials like marble can retail for up to four times the cost depending on the grader of stone you select.
Using our estimate of £20-£25 per square metre, we can assume that the final cost of tiling a bathroom with eight square meters of floor space to be around £480 to £550 with fitment included.
The answer depends on your personal preference. We like lighter colours in areas like bathrooms and the kitchen, while lounges and entrances look fantastic with a set of terracotta tiles. The choice is up to you, and we recommend you take advice from friends and family before settling on your final decision.
Cleaning your new tiles is far easier than cleaning that old shabby carpet in your living room. We put together this brief Q&A to help you with maintaining your new flooring.
We recommend you clean tile floors using a mild detergent and a chamois-type mop. Sponge mops push the dirty water into grout lines, creating stains that are harder to clean.
To clean neglected tile flooring, you will need to apply undiluted tile cleaner to the surface directly, and scrub with a bristled brush. Use a toothbrush to clean the grouting. Severely stained tiles may need replacement.
You can deep clean tiling using white vinegar diluted 1:1 with water. It’s vital that you don’t use this technique on marble flooring as it may damage the finish of the tiles. For stubborn stains, mix a 1:1 solution of scouring powder with warm water and scrub the floor with a brush to remove the stain.
Mix three parts baking soda with one part water to form a paste. Apply the paste to the grouting and scrub with a toothbrush to remove stains. If you don’t have success with this method, we suggest you use grout paint to hide the stains.
Specialised tile cleaning formulas designed for your specific tiles are readily available for supermarkets and online retailers.
We recommend that you use a wax stripper on ceramic tiles to remove any stubborn grit and grime. After cleaning, use an electric floor buffer to bring out the lustre and shine.
Steam mops are an excellent choice for cleaning ceramic tiles, but we don’t recommend them for slate, marble, granite or other tiles that require sealing. The steam may strip away the sealant, staining your tiles.
We like to clean ceramic tiles with a steam mop while using a micro-fibre mop for other materials.
We recommend that you use a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment on the head. This method ensures that you don’t scratch the tiles while vacuuming.
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