PORCELAIN FLOORING - SAFE?

[sspaul121]

Hi

We are refurbing the family home, a 3 bed bungalow. New Kitchen, family bathroom and 1 enuites and new 4th bedroom.

We maybe planning on having Light Cream highly polished factory sealed porcelain 600 x 600 tiles installed in our new open plan kitchen with Devimat underfloor heating on top of a conctere floor. Approx area 21 sqm.

We were planning on having this in the loung and living room area (48sqm), but the cost of having the above underfloor heating running in such a big area would have been prohibitive.

Anyway as the finish is polished is this safe to walk on for young children?

Would this be safe for Bathroom and Ensuite flooring?

If not are there other finishes which are just as hard wearing/maintenace free but safe top walk on i.e. Satin?

Thanks,
Paul

 

[Richard C]

It rather depends on the type of tiles you use; polished porcelain or ceramic is going to be very slippery when wet, not a good idea for the floor in a bathroom or kitchen IMO I usually recommend selecting tiles with a slight texture or satin in such areas but of course the choice is always down to the customer. This may help you decide;
http://www.floorfacts.com/ceramic-porcelain-tile.asp
Light cream not a good colour in heavy traffic areas, even worse in a kitchen & if you use a light coloured grout it will stain & look very dingy in a very short time. Use insulation tile board under the UFH; more efficient & gives a much quicker warm up time or you will waste energy heating mother earth. Not sure of the wisdom of UFH in a kitchen though, they get hot enough as it is; friend of mine has it & never uses it, it’s not particularly cheap to run either. Don’t know your floor layout but 45sq/m is a large area & you may need to install expansion joints to avoid it cracking.

With suspended timber floors, it’s critical you get the tile base right & use the correct materials if you want it to last; also applies to walls. Read the Tiling Forum sticky & forum archive posts, it may help prevent you making some potentially expensive mistakes. Come back if you have more questions.

Please don’t double post; it’s not necessary, breaks forum rules & leads to confusion. This is the correct forum for your question ask admin to delete your other post in floors/stairs/lofts if they haven’t done so already.

 

[sspaul121]

Thanks.

Aplogies for the dble post. The other post was to do with underfloor heating rather than porcelain tiles.

Cheers,
Paul