Kitchen Materials: Ceramic and Glass Tiles
Ceramic Tile: Best for Back-splashes and Floors
Ceramic tile appears in kitchens as flooring, counters, wall surfaces and back-splashes. Tile requires an extremely rigid and strong substrate, usually cement or a special backer board made of concrete material. Without this rigid backing, tile and its grout can crack and tile repairs are very difficult to match with existing work.
The advantages of tile are beauty, color and sheen, heat and water resistance and the tactile quality of their hard smooth surfaces. They lend themselves well to vertical applications like back-splashes and walls. We don’t care for tile counters because dirt and oil can stain grout lines, water can cause damage, the tile surface is very hard and can crack if heavy pans are dropped on it. If you choose tile as a counter surface have the tile installed by a pro and choose tile made for horizontal applications.
Tile ranges in price from very inexpensive mass-produced squares to extremely expensive hand-made one of a kind pieces. Cheap tile may work on a low impact area like a back-splash but it scratches easier, is less dimensionally accurate yielding an uneven installation and can break if not fired properly. Color in cheap tile may vary widely from samples and from box to box.
Floor tiles must be of very high quality, made for flooring and installed on a specially prepared concrete or multi-layer base. Any movement will result in cracking. We cannot recommend the use of unglazed tiles anywhere in a kitchen. They stain easily and cannot be cleaned thoroughly. Quality tiles have thick glazes that are fired at high temperatures by artisans who know how to create a durable product that is stable in both dimension and color, both important in flooring.
The texture of tile varies from glossy to textures mimicking sand and stone. Made well, these rougher textures not only hold up well, they reduce slipperiness underfoot. Tiles also come in every look from a primitive paver to Victorian accent tiles to high tech grids of color. A visit to several tile dealers will whet your appetite for this attractive and versatile material.
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Glass Tile
Tile made of glass is now widely available and offers many beautiful options, especially for back-splashes where its reflective and iridescent surface adds light and a shot of intense color to areas that are often poorly lit.
Because glass tile is either transparent or translucent it requires specialized installation to ensure that the surface beneath the tile is uniform and brings out the color of the tile. Standard tile techniques and materials will be revealed through the glass. Make sure your tile contractor has experience with this material to ensure that this does not happen.
