Slate Tile Flooring: How Slate Tile is Prepared for Your Floor Project

The popular use of slate tile flooring in many areas of residential and commercial interiors and exteriors is a tribute to its versatility and aesthetic value. With its distinctive surface, ease of installation and workability, decorative color variation, and its natural slip-resistance that makes it a great choice for practicality and look. With slate, you'll always have firm footing!

In addition to being durable and decorative, slate tiles are often designed to be easy to work with for an experienced tile installer as well. It is important to many manufacturers to make installing slate tile as simple a process as is possible for a material that remains largely unchanged from its natural state. Two of the processes\ that allows this is gauge and calibration of the slate tile. Gauge refers to a process whereby the edges of the slate tile are made square by precision cutting. This simple process allows the slate tile to be an interlocking material that will be more easily interlocked with other tiles. In addition, the process of calibration involves making the back of the slate tile as even as possible by means of machine-honing it to be smooth or ribbed depending on type. The process of calibration is important in making sure that the slate tile will lay flat when installed. This too is designed for ease of installation, as well as a positive result in terms of an even walking surface.

One of the most popular choices in slate tile flooring is the natural face, or split-face slate tile. The "split" in split-face refers to where the slate has been removed, or split, from the slate bed. Therefore, this variety of slate tile maintains the natural, unevenly textured surface that makes slate tile distinct from other varieties of natural stone. Split-face slate tile flooring is also one of the best choices you can make if you are looking for a slip-resistant surface. Also, this type of slate tile flooring has a tactile dimension all of its own, adding a sensuous character to a slate tile floor that is an additional feature to the rich color.

Thickness of slate tile

It must be noted that there will often be a thickness variation from tile to tile. It's a good idea to discuss this with your local flooring professionals, or your slate tile sales rep. They can often be helpful to you when you are thinking of using slate, but are uncertain about some of these details that characterize natural stone surfaces. The thickness variation is often presented in a range of 3/8"-7/16", for instance. Again, your sales rep or other flooring professional can help you with the specifics of your chosen line of slate tile flooring