Tiled floors are the easiest finish to protect and the most often over-specified. Fired ceramic and porcelain are harder than almost anything on a site and they do not stain if spills are cleaned. The vulnerable parts are the grout lines, the unglazed edges and – on natural stone tile – the surface itself.
What tile shrugs off
Abrasion from site grit does essentially nothing to a glazed porcelain tile; the glaze is harder than quartz. Spills sit on the surface and clean off. Impact damage is possible but it takes a real hit, and it usually cracks a tile rather than marking it – which is a replacement, not a repair, but it is rare. If the only risk is foot traffic and dust, a light cover is enough and anything more is wasted.
What grout does not shrug off
Cementitious grout is porous and softer than the tile. It absorbs spills, and a dark liquid in a light grout line is permanent. It also gets stained by grout slurry that is not cleaned off during the tiling itself, and it is eroded by acidic cleaners. Where a tiled floor is being protected during decorating, the reason is almost always the grout, not the tile.
Unglazed edges and cut tiles
A cut tile edge has no glaze and it is the part that chips. Around door thresholds, at the perimeter and anywhere a tile has been cut to fit, the edge is exposed and it chips when something is set down on it. Protection that stops short at those lines leaves the only vulnerable part of a tiled floor uncovered.
Natural stone tile is a different material
Limestone, travertine and marble tiles are soft, porous and acid-sensitive, and they behave nothing like porcelain. They scratch, they etch and they stain. If the floor is stone, everything in the tile section above is wrong and the floor needs the soft-face and impermeable approach – and it needs telling apart from porcelain at specification time, which people frequently get wrong by looking at a sample in a showroom.
When no protection is the right answer
A porcelain floor in a dry area with light foot traffic needs dust protection at most, and a cheap sheet does that. We would rather say it than sell panel. The cases that justify real protection on tile are: wet trades working over it, stone rather than porcelain, and heavy traffic with grit.
Sealers and when they go on
A penetrating sealer on grout and stone changes what protection is needed, because it removes the staining risk that most tile protection exists for. If the floor is going to be sealed, do it before the decorating starts and the protection requirement drops substantially. Doing it afterwards means protecting an unsealed, porous floor through the dirtiest phase, which is the worst of both.
Grout colour and what shows
A mid-tone grout hides site dirt far better than either extreme: white shows every mark and very dark grout shows every scratch of light-coloured filler dust. Where the client has not fixed on a colour and the floor is being laid before decorating, a mid grey is the pragmatic recommendation and it is worth saying so.
The working-area version of this – slurry, cutting and where the water goes – is described in protecting floors during tiling and grouting.
What we can do
We supply corrugated PP sheet for dust and light duty on porcelain, and heavier protection where grout, stone or wet trades are involved. Tell us what the tile actually is – porcelain, ceramic or stone – and what is happening over it, and we will tell you honestly how much protection is worth buying.