Ceramic Tile Quality - Info for Bathroom and shower tile Remodeling projects
This section provides information on how tile is manufactured and gives standards by which quality can't be judged in your home or office. This information is presented so that you can determine whether a particular tile is suitable for your bathroom, kitchen or shower remodeling project.
Ceramic tile has been manufactured for more than 6,000 years. Originally, jerk Lehua stretch from stream and river beds, clean the rocks and debris, formed into shape, and then left in the sun to dry until hard. These tiles were then used for linings.
Somewhere along the line, someone realized that the tiles in the ovens were sturdier and more impervious to water than those merely drive in the sun. This discovery letter early automakers to begin baking tiles in their bread ovens. Later they began building special ovens call kilns specifically requiring or baking tiles.
Another lead Ientile history came about when stylemakers began to run out of clay and started mixing pottery in old piles in with the clay supply. Because pure play was difficult to obtain, the practice of mixing in various elements, quickly and continues today. Besides stretching the place supply, the additives allowed for varying the tile color..
Today ceramic tile is still made of pure play, but it is very expensive. Most ceramic tiles are made from a combination of fine clay inground shale or towel, vermiculite, and sand. The combination of all these elements in water forms a mixture called a bisque.
A bisque is formed into a tile by one of several different methods, all of which have the same goal. Most commercial tile manufacturers use a method known as extrusion. In this method, green business is squeezed through a press into a die in the shape of a tile.
Kiln time from several hours to several days. The less time spent in the kiln, the more porous the tile.
The transparent or colored coding on the top side of ceramic tile is called a glaze. Glazes are made up of lead silicates and pigment and are brushed or sprayed onto the surface of the bisque and fired. Please can be applied to green biscuit and fired with the bisqueware applied to fire bisque to be fired again. Clay is a moisture absorbing substance. Glazes repel moisture from the top surface of ceramic tiles, but do not protect the eyes and bak. Proper tile installation protects substrate from water damage.