But you have to check two things, that its the right one for your floor and that you have chosen the correct floor tile for the area you wish to install it . A floor tile in an entrance way should be hard, moisture/water proof and abrasion resistant. To install a floor tile in a bathroom it should be moisture proof and of a non slip material. These non slip tiles are roughed up with an abrasive material treatment to the tiles surface for safety. Check if the tile you like can be used both indoor or outdoor as some tiles can only be used for one or the other .

Floor tiles are usually manufactured in square shapes of 4"x4" up to 24"x24" and are 1/2" - 3/4" thick. Floor tiles are available in other shapes like hexagonal and octagonal.

Choosing Floor Tiles

More and more people are using floor tiles and for good reasons:

Floor tiles are easy to care for
Floor tiles look natural with a handcrafted look
Floor tiles work well if you have a high foot traffic or areas with water and dirt
Limitless design pattern options with so many textures, colours and sizes.
More creative with colour grouts and hand painted floor tiles
Limitless design options by combining different geometric layouts and trim tiles.

Floor Tile Ratings

The hardness of floor tiles are rated by some standard tests. Moh scale measures a tiles ability to how much water it absorbs and how it stands up to wear.

Porcelain Enamel hardness ratings:

Group one Light: Home bathroom floors for your every day bare feet.
Group two Medium: Interior home with little abrasion (Not kitchens).
Group two Medium-Heavy: All/any home interior.
Group three Heavy: Homes and medium commercial housing
Group five Extra Heavy: Can be used anywhere for anything

These important ratings are here to help but do not get pulled into deep analysis just ask before you order.

Floor Tile Installation

D.I.Y. (do it yourself) scale, ranges from easy to challenging for floor tile installation. You will 9/10 times have to cut some tiles to make them fit. To keep your floor tiles in place you will want to use mortar or one of our other tile adhesives, finishing off with the final application of grout.

Examples of tile types.

The difficulty of precision cutting that some tiles require may be hard for some if not most installations as with any type of tile. As with most D.I.Y. floor tiling has its own set of concerns. Tile requires a very stable subsurface as it's not a resilient material, this often means that the subfloor will have to be built up to the right thickness for tile flooring.

Floor Tile Firing Process

The floor tile firing process affects the hardness of tiles. The hotter and longer floor tiles are in the firing process, the harder the floor tiles will usually turn out. Bisque (the raw floor tile material) is either single or double fired.

Single Fired Tiles are baked once in a kiln after the glaze is applied to the raw tile material.
Double Fired Tiles which are thicker get a second bake normally after any additional decoration or colouring is added.

Floor Tile Porosity

Porosity is the percentage of water a floor tile absorbs, you should pay close attention to this when choosing luxury vinyl tiles for kitchens and baths as these areas need to have a high moisture proof flooring. Freezing weather produced outside in the cold is not the kind of area that porous tiles should be installed. This is the order of porosity of floor tiles starting with most absorbent to least absorbent: Non Vitreous, Semi Vitreous, Impervious.