Wood you believe it

The latest fashion in ceramic floor tiles is wood!  Yes, wood effect tiles have been extremely popular in Europe for a few years and they are now finding their way onto the British market.  Why have wood effect tiles?  Most of the wood effect tiles on the UK market are hard wearing porcelain; they have beauty of wood in a product that will last a lifetime in a domestic setting with little or no maintenance.  No need to worry about imprints from chair legs or to ask your female visitors to remove their high heeled shoes. 

Many of the tiles are made as individual “planks” and are individually patterned to produce a high resemblance to actual wood.  They are ideal for bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms and hallways.  In fact they can be used throughout the house.  Many are also frost resistant and can be used on decks and patios without the need of the time consuming, costly annual maintenance associated with wood.

You can tile to most wooden floors.  Modern houses may present the challenge of having to bond tiles to a range of dry lining partition wall systems and composite joist and board overlay products for floors.  In older properties timber joists and floor boards create a similar challenge.  For many years it was considered that such floors could not be tiled but now the majority of adhesive manufacturers produce specific groups of products for this particular application as well as advice notes on floor preparation and fixing. 

In general the floor needs to be stable with normal humidity levels and needs to be physically capable of bearing the extra weight.  The floor is then overlaid with a proprietary intermediate substrate to separate the tiles from the floor, eliminating cracking and crazing caused by movement and differential rates of expansion and contraction due to temperature changes.  

For further information: www.tiles.org.uk

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