My Home Idea: Tile Flooring Vs Wood flooring

Making a choice regarding flooring for your home need to be practical, cost effective and most importantly, compliment your home ideas and décor elements. Knowing a little more about the attributes of each of these flooring types, can help to make your selection easier.

Cost

If cost is an important consideration, ceramic tile installations has become much less than the installation cost of hardwood floors. In addition, ceramic tiles require much less surface preparation than hardwood floors. Regardless of your choice, always keep in mind that the proper method of surface preparation is crucial to ensure a long lasting floor. Adding to all the above, in general, ceramic tile flooring is more cost effective than wooden floors.

Maintenance

Ceramic tile floors can be installed with ease with little or any kind of environmental restrictions. Moreover, to maintain and clean ceramic tile floors is equally easy and requires very little maintenance. Cleaning entails hardly more than a bucket of soapy water and a mop. The main cleaning concern with ceramic tile floors is to keep the grouting free from stains and stuck grime. One way to eliminate this problem is to simply seal the grout lines. This way the original coloring of the grout will be preserved and any grime buildup can be prevented.

Wooden floors on the other hand require a significant amount of maintenance periodically and special care needs to be taken during the cleaning of wooden floors. With wooden floors, special wooden floor cleaners should be applied for the specific kind of wooden flooring. In addition, very mild soapy water can be used, but wooden floors can not be washed in the same way as one would with ceramic floors. Moisture and especially water is one of wood’s largest enemies. The best way to clean a wooden floor would be to clean with a damp cloth and wipe it dry directly afterwards.

Wear and Tear

Ceramic flooring can withstand high traffic with little or no visible impact and are therefore the most durable option between ceramic tile and wooden floors in this regard. Ceramic tiles are certainly a more suitable choice in areas that are prone to grit and sand. Sand and grit have a harmful effect on wooden floors and to preserve the appearance of wooden floors, you will need to place a number of rugs and doormats to prevent scratches and prevent the wood to become dull.

Durability

One of the drawbacks of ceramic tile flooring is that if you drop something heavy on the floor it can crack or chip easily because it is so dense and hard. Once this happen, you will have to replace the number of damaged tiles to restore the floor.

Although wooden floors may show a dent, knock or scratch when something heavy is dropped or dragged over the surface, it can easily be dealt with, with much less effort. In addition, most of the times, this kind of damage are seen as adding character to the flooring.

Repairs

To repair a dull, worn, damaged, or scratched wooden floor can be done by resurfacing or sanding processes, while it is hardly possible to repair a ceramic tile floor in any other way than replacing the damaged surface.

What ever your idea for flooring may be, make sure that you keep the above factors in mind before you decide on the most suitable flooring option for your home.

Article written by Madeleine Muller and edited by Victor Luo for Kentwood Tiles, Floor tiles Perth suppliers. Also a wall and ceramic tiles Perth importer and Supplier.