How To Choose Wood Look Tile | 5 Things You Need to Know For Wood Like Tiles Selection

2020/4/17 16:49:12

In recent years, with the improvement of people's requirements for the quality of life, the hardwood floor has become the mainstream in tile market. However, the service life of the hardwood floor is indeed limited. It may cause lots of problems after used for a long time, which bothers many people. There is a kind of comfortable, durable and beautiful floor decoration material - wood look tiles replacing hardwood, come in a wide range of colors, patterns and styles. When making your choice, however, you need to take several important factors into account. This article covers some tips on how to choose a wood look tile, making your wood look tile buying decision easier. Plus, you will find the fastest and easiest wood look tile laying method.

How To Choose Wood Look Tile - 5 Things You Need to Know For Selecting Wood Like Tiles

With rich patterns, sizes and styles, whatever wood tiles you choose, It’s up to you to create the exact look and feel you’ve always wanted for your home décor. Now follow these tips for choosing a wood look tile, get some inspiration to remodel your house with best wood effect tiles.

Wood Look Tile Size - Choose A Longer Plank Length

Back in the day, wood-look tiles were thinner and shorter because the printing technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. Now there are really no limitations and wood-look tiles are available in sizes previously only achieved by their real deal counterparts. You can now choose a longer wood plank length, as longer tiles resemble real wood planks more closely and give the floor a more natural look. To create a realistic wood replica in your home, you need wood-like tiles that are at least 1000mm long, but 1200mm or longer is better.

Wood Look Tile Quality - Choose A Porcelain Over Ceramic Tiles

There are different types of tiles that look tile wood, but porcelain wood tile is the most popular option. This is largely due to the fact that porcelain has a higher hardness rating than ceramic, what’s more, it is impervious to water and naturally stain-resistant, as well as very hygienic and easy to clean. You're gonna want that. Also, get a full body porcelain wood look tile. The color is uniform throughout and that will come in handy when you drop Grandma's priceless, antique pitcher and chip a tile. You know it will happen.

Wood Look Tile Edge - Choose A Rectified Tiles That Looks Like Wood

To make your wood tile floor look like a real hardwood floor, you need a seamless-looking flooring with very thin grout lines. Rectified tiles allow for a very clean, symmetrical installation and much thinner, more precise grout lines. The rectified edge is way more precise than it's rougher, non-rectified counterpart. This is accomplished by machining the tiles to give them near perfect edges and exact dimensions. so you’re strongly advised to opt for tile that has rectified edges when choosing wood like tiles for your home.

Pattern & Appearance - Choose Inkjet Wood Look Tile

Porcelain and ceramic tiles that look like wood actually have pictures of pieces of real wood printed on them. To get a more natural look, select a tile with a more subtle wood texture and a pattern with a lot of variation, preferably made by inkjet technology, not only will the image be better quality, but the variation will be much greater than older roto-print type printing applications. The higher the printing quality, the more genuine the tile looks.

How To Install Wood Look Tiles Flooring & Wall

Once you have chosen the best wood like tile for your home improvement project, you need to have it installed correctly, so that the tile flooring looks like real hardwood floor. There are several tricks to laying wood look tiles:

Base course treatment. If there is dirt on the floor or wall, it must be cleaned up, otherwise the cement mortar and the base are not firmly bonded. After the base course is watered and moistened, the sand and sundries shall be removed. This can make the ground base level, floor tiles are not easy to produce hollowing, cracking and other situations after laying.
Snapping and pre laying: Before construction, the elevation control line shall be snapped around the wall, and the cross line shall be snapped on the floor to control the floor tile separation size. On the basis of drawing design requirements, strictly select the color, texture and surface flatness of the floor tiles, and then lay them in advance according to the drawing requirements.

Make sure the subfloor is perfect flat. Before laying the floor tiles, the surface of the subfloor shall be evenly plastered with plain cement slurry, and the cement mortar shall be scraped flat with a large pole, and then compacted with a trowel. The thickness of the leveling layer should be 2-3mm higher than the horizontal line of the bottom elevation of the floor tile.
Lay tiles. In the process of laying the wood look tiles, the level meter shall be used for testing, and the level height measured by the level meter shall be the same, so that the floor tiles after laying can be beautiful and flat. So the level is very important!
Go with thin grout lines. Smaller grout joint will make your ceramic/porcelain wood look tile flooring look more like a real wood floor. Very thin grout lines, however, can worsen the lippage problem. So, your best bet when laying wood like tile is a 1/8 inch grout joint. In terms of grout color for wood look tile, choose a grout color that is one shade deeper than the darkest color in your wood like tile.

More read: How To Clean Wood Look Tile Flooring