Why do people still tile floors?

[Gerrydelasel]

Thought I'd start my own discussion thread. This has no particular motive, I'm just curoius what people think!

OK, I am guilty of sometimes deriding modern materials as 'naff' and 'not as good as the real thing', but when it comes to tiled floors, I am puzzled. These days you can buy vinyl flooring that is genuinely indistinguishable from real tiles, yet seems to have far more advantages:

• Cheaper
• Easier to lay
• Easier to remove / replace
• No seams or cracks to let water through to the subfloor
• Doesn't suffer ground in dirt and mould
• Warmer to the touch (bare feet, mmm!)
  
• Softer to the touch (less likely to break plates!)

So why do I still see people breaking their backs by tiling so many kitchen/bathroom floors? And I'm not even talking huge floors that you couldn't cover with one roll; I'm talking ordinary 2-up 2-down houses. Often with cheap ugly tiles, too.
What am I missing??

 

[OwainDIYer]

Tile is a lot more hardwearing than vinyl

In small or awkwardly shaped areas tile can be a lot easier to lay, particularly for DIYers. Boxes of tiles are heavy but easier to get in the car than a 3 m roll of vinyl.

 

[footprints]

It's "trendy" just like stripping floorboards, result massive draughts! Ever worked it out? Even a 1/16 inch gap on a floorboard means 1 Square inch of free space per 16", 12 ft room 144/16 = 9 sq ins per board!
My previous neighbour fitted ceramic tiles in her bathroom, she then had to have work done on the heating, they ended up pulling down the kitchen ceiling for access to the pipes!

 

[flameport]

Decent tiles installed properly are much easier to clean, will last for decades and are far more suited for underfloor heating than other coverings.

 

[Gerrydelasel]

All good points!

 

[cjard]

Mmmhh.. i'm with you actually; we looked at so many floor covering options for the downstairs that I got sick of it.. It's an anhydrous screed with UFH..

Carpet - lovely feel, quiet and means i don't have to buy a couch but murder to clean, wears out and blocks the UFH
Tiles - lovely feel, classy, solid, conducts UFH well, easy to clean and hardwearing but too hard, darling son might fall and break his face, could be slippery, could feel cold and uninviting, noisy in high heels (not mine) and not very comfy to lie on
Wood laminate - cheap, quick and easy to lay but sounds hollow, wears and looks shabby quickly, worse if gets wet, underlay blocks the UFH, not comfy to lie on, somewhat hard and struggles to look authentic
Engineered wood - classy, warm, little quieter than other hard coverings but potentially a bitch to lay, and only so-so good for UFH. Also quite thick so you can't really have a mix of coverings without step changes in level unless it's all wood and bar the colour, not much changes about it
Linoleum - warm, soft, easy to care for, range of weird designs, should be reasonably easy to install but has a bit of a stigma, imitations of other materials aren't very authentic, the foamier it is the worse for UFH and it's rather much the preserve of cheap northen kitchens IMHO. Also fairly easy to damage/wrinkle
Vinyl planks (karndean etc) - can be classy, range of textures, relatively quiet but solid feeling, pretty good for UFH, can incorporate all sorts of weird and wonderful designs/murals and imitate other coverings really well, hard wearing in thicker forms, easy to lay and transport, doddle to care for.. but it can be expensive, still fairly hard feeling, it is possible to damage it mechanically through lack of care and much as your mates might not realise it's vinyl until told, they might then think it's linoleum and assume it's a cheap imitation of some real thing


Overall, I favoured the vinyl planks the most, couldn't care less what other people think and I'm looking at installing Polyflor's dark recycled wood because it's just weird, different and i think it's brilliant. I wish it was more comfy to lie/fall on but it's not as bad as tile and there is nearly no compromise on squidgy and UFH comaptible - something is either one, or the other

 

[Gerrydelasel]

What's UFH?

 

[PBC_1966]

What's UFH?

Under-Floor Heating.

 

[misterhelpful]

Because, how else would we be able to complain about our knees being shot when we reach the big 4-0!!

 

[foxhole]

Vinyl is easily damaged and tiles can be cheaper.Never seen ground in dirt on tiles they are hard wearing, or mold, which is not caused by any floor covering.