Tell me about marble mosaic shower floors.

11 years ago

We are redoing our master bath and so far have settled on porcelain for shower wall and room floor. We had a really hard time picking the shower floor material to match our wall and so far the only one we like is a marble mosaic circle tiles. We've never had any experience with marble so please tell me as much as I need to know about marble for shower floors.

Since it is the master bath, only me and my husband will be using the shower. What kind of maintenance can we expect? How long would the floor look great? Do we need to be careful about shampoo or soap where it comes to the floor? Thanks so much.

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Comments (3)

MongoCT
11 years ago
I love the look of marble, the same with most natural stones.

The problem is that yesteryear's marble was fairly consistent. If the stone was a lousy stone, it did not make it to market. Or it was re-purposed into another type of product. Today, with the advent of an open global economy, the ability to buy over the internet, and with improvements in not just mining stone, but also in technology (like resinating slabs) that allow manufacturers to recapture and bring stone to market that would have been rejected years ago...it's tough unless you know where your stone has been sourced from. Resining a slab can be a good thing in terms of slab strength, porosity, etc. But it also has consequences.

High-iron marble used to never make it into the residential tile world. It's all over the place now. Same with softer grades of marble, I've been given boxes of marble mosaic where finger pressure on the corner of the pieces can cause it to crumble.

If you want to use marble in a shower floor, go for a low-iron marble. Marble is porous and will absorb moisture, and that wetting and drying can cause iron deposits in the marble to oxidize, or "rust". You can end up an overall yellowing of the stone, or with more specific rust-colored stains or veining in your stone.

I also recommend installing the marble over a topical membrane. Hydroban, Kerdi, RedGard, etc. That prevents deep-wetting of the shower floor and helps promote drying of the marble.

When you create the slope, makes sure it is consistent. Sometimes the slope tends to flatten near the walls, then the wall-floor intersection is slow to drain or it can hold water.

When you grout, don't over-tool the grout. You want the grout to be flush with the surface of the stone, you don't want mini-valleys between the tile that can hold water.

So, 1) pick a good stone, and 2) control the water.

Easy-peasey!
busybee3
11 years ago
i would want to make sure i had a shower floor that i could scrub, so i would check about that with whatever product i chose before it was installed! (i would rec a cast iron shower pan, myself!! :)
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I would recommend going to a local tile supply store and they should be able to guide you in the right direction. I have a members only business I work with called ProSource that has a whole showroom of different types of tile. Some tile manufacturers have like 20 different pricing tiers depending on the amount of tile you buy. Being a member allows me to have the larger buying power (theirs), wider selection, and thus a lower price point than if I went to the manufacturer direct and opened an account. They also sell at a wholesale price (My discounted price) or list price. I always pass my wholesale price to the clients - It's the right thing to do! Most of the porcelain tile mimics an actual marble or is very similar so if you find a marble you like then that will give you a better direction to find a manufacturer that can come close. Here is a link to just a google search that shows the wide array of tile that you can get. https://tilebar.com/collection/porcelain-tile/shop-by-look-porcelain/marble-look-porcelain-tile.html Mjammjam - I'm not sure of the type of marble that was listed in the original picture. Save it and go to a local supply store and see if they can find something that looks-alike. Best of luck in your endeavor! And food for thought - Not all tile is made equally. Their is a multitude of different rankings for hardness and durability given the area of application. One is called a PEI (Porcelain Enamel Institute) rating but there are other factors pending what type of tile you go with (Slip resistance, Moh's hardness, abrasion resistance, and frost resistance, breaking strength, water absorption, shade variation, etc.). You can go to The Home Depot and get a good looking floor tile but its PEI rating is like a 2, whereas I can go to a different manufacturer with the same look and gets a much higher PEI rating (around a 4). It cost a bit more but the tile is suited for the application and is more durable in the long run. Well worth the additional $ in my eyes. A good tile salesman will help you find the best tile for your application but it's good to be educated going in! :)
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Honed marble with a lot of grout lines should be fine. I put this in after a little research. You need to seal it properly and reseal it every year to keep it from staining, as Jill mentioned, that is a factor. Maybe sealing is an issue, and keeping grout clean, that's something I hate, so that makes it harder to maintain, to answer your question more directly.
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annemouse
11 years ago
We have had a basket-weave marble shower floor for 2.5 years now with no problems. Floor is not slippery and has not been stained by liquid soap, shampoo etc. Grout coloration is a different issue. I am afraid to use bleach on the light grey grout lines to remove pink algae. So far, scrubbing with a towel, a steam cleaner or the occasional use of the magic eraser have taken care of that. Since the shower is a replacement for the bidet that was on that spot before and the rest of the bathroom already was tiled in marble 20 years ago the use of marble in the shower was always our only way to go. So far, no regrets.

Tell me about marble mosaic shower floors.

Comments (3)

MongoCT

busybee3

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