Choosing the flooring for most rooms in your home usually comes down to appearance and affordability. In essence, you want your bedroom, living room, dining room and family room to look good. Although performance and durability is important, it typically becomes a lot less important than how the flooring looks from a design standpoint. However, the script is flipped when it comes to what’s the best flooring to use in a bathroom. When you pick the flooring for a bathroom remodeling project it’s important to consider how it will hold up against the elements. In this case, the elements are water and steam.
Water typically ends up everywhere in your bathroom and that includes the floor, and moisture ruins certain flooring materials. You also need to consider a few other factors when choosing the best flooring to use in a bathroom. For example, appearance, cost and durability all come into play here. So, what’s the best flooring to use in a bathroom? Porcelain tile. It’s cost-effective, stylish, and waterproof. In addition, porcelain tile has the ability to achieve a rich and textured feeling just like more expensive solid stone tile. Many clients ask us if they should choose porcelain tile over ceramic tile for their bathroom floors.
There is a difference between the two. Although porcelain is part of the ceramic tile family, there is a big difference. It has a much better water absorption rate, which is important for your bathroom floor since it gets wet so often. In essence, porcelain tiles have a water absorption rate of 0.5 or less, which is excellent and perfect for situations where it will get wet on a frequent basis. There are a plethora of different porcelain tiles to choose from. They come in a wide variety of colors and patterns. That means you can design the exact bathroom floor that you want. There’s even porcelain tiles that resemble wood and stone.
Porcelain tiles are also available in many different sizes and shapes. Porcelain tile bathroom floors also clean up with ease. However, tile floors are cold, which is a turn off for some homeowners. The good news is that we can also install heated tile or radiant heating that’s laid underneath the tile. We should also note that wet tile tends to be a bit slippery. However, if the tile is textured it usually solves the issue. If porcelain tiles are outside of your project budget, the next best choice is vinyl flooring. It’s available in plank, or tile forms. Vinyl bathroom flooring has been a popular choice for years.
For more information about what’s the best flooring to use in a bathroom, or questions about our design and build services, or to schedule an initial consultation in Connecticut or Massachusetts please contact us today at 860-341-6373. DBC Solutions takes great pride in providing the highest quality custom carpentry and contracting services in the home improvement industry. Our business model has been the same for 17 years. Doing things the right way the first time every time is the only way to do it.