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Stone floors; do you like yours?


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We have been considering replacing our tile floors with stone (flagstone?).  We have seen a few houses with stone floors and think that they might be a good alternative to the tiles which seem to crack easily, at least ours do and some of our tiles are not more than five years old.  If you have stone floors, do you like them and why, or hate them and why?  Can you tell us who we would see about buying and installing same.  The other thing we have considered is marble but again, we know nothing about who installs them and what the durability, maintenance  and cost compared to floor tile is; any information/observations would be appreciated.

 

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Tiles that were installed with just spots of adhesive may have voids beneath them & will crack easily.  However, cracking due to movement of the concrete below is a different story.  You should determine the cause before making any decisions.  Oh....marble stains easily.

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We once rented a house for one month in San Miguel with cantera floors.  

Looked beautiful EXCEPT in the kitchen stove area where the stone was stained by what appeared to be grease splatters.  This house was almost brand new and rather elegant.  There was a daily maid who kept it otherwise spotless, so I assume these darkened grease stains were not easy to remove.  

Just an observation based on some conjecture, but thought I'd mention it since it detracted horribly from the beautiful kitchen.

 

 

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I think that poor installation is the main problem with our damaged tile.  The first floor that we had refinished, replaced tiles that we knew were very old just by the design; there were no cracks in them but they were worn looking and since we had enlarged the space we had to start with new, because we could not match what was there.  Within weeks we had cracks; this was nine years ago and still every time we vacuum and wash the floors we displace some of the grout; it is like shale!  Other tiles seem not to have a full concrete foundation; if we drop something there is a hollow sound; some of these have not cracked yet but give it time!  The bathrooms have all been re-built from the dirt up; we were here to watch the process; none of these tiles have cracked and all of the bathrooms were done between two and nine years ago so, so far, so good.  But I do like the look of the stone/flagstone and would be interested in investigating it if I knew where to start in the Chapala, Jocotepec area.

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When we lived NOB and were building a new home, I looked into slate floors. The nice lady at the wholesale flooring place told me that tile made to look like slate was much more practical. Easier to clean, cheaper and easier on the joints. I followed her advise and the floor was gorgeous.

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Those travertino (limestone) and marbles are lovely to look at. They are especially nice this time of year to walk barefoot on them - so cool. They are supposed to shine to a super mirror like gloss, which requires special equipment and materials that I doubt exists in Chapala. They have to be physically polished every few years, then they can be sealed with a type of wax based coating - you know those buffing machines you see operating in commercial buildings, etc. Today, they use diamond grinders, which speeds up the process considerably. They are also very slippery when wet - if you spill water, or whatever, you have to clean it up immediately, otherwise that part of the floor will be like a sheet of ice. If you are in a fancy hotel with polished stone floors, and the janitor has a sign up "wet floors" - stay very far away. Many, many people have slipped on these floors.

Another very popular option these days is polished concrete. The floors, wall panels, countertops can be coloured in an infinite variety of ways, and then sealed to high gloss. The boom in polished concrete floors has been driven by large supermarkets - they were finding their power/lighting bills were cut as much as 40% with these reflective floors. Now - don't ask me where to find someone in Guadalajara.

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