Planning Your New Tile Purchase

Whether you are planning to start your own tile project or simply purchasing tile for someone else to install, it can be a big decision! Living with your new kitchen backsplash tile for the next 20 years is a commitment! There are big box stores, specialty stores, the online avenue or discount building supply stores. Let’s examine some of the things to consider when purchasing your tile for installation.

The Return Policy

First and foremost, ensure your floor, wall or kitchen backsplash tiles can be returned! Good practice dictates to purchase 10% more tile than you expect to need. This can be for cutting mistakes, fitting odd shapes or corners or flat out broken tiles. Or even just to keep on hand if a tile should crack in the future. At any rate, if you end up not liking the tile color, the tile quality is cheap, or the product is not what you expected you don’t want to end up stuck with hundreds or thousands of dollars of tile you cannot return.

Below are some of the gotchas that can arise in returns:

·         Online purchase may not allow Tile Returns and if they do, you may incur the return shipping charge.

·         Tile Returns may only occur over “x” number of days. What if it takes longer to install the tiles?

·         How will the vendor honor damaged tiles?

·         Is the return policy the same for defective tiles versus simply not liking the tile?

·         Is there a restock fee?

Online Tile Shopping can be Risky

Ordering tile online sounds great in practice. Assuming there is a no questions asked return policy, you may save yourself some money. But there is something to be said about holding the tile. Does it feel durable? In the store, are there cracked edges on the stock in the shelves? Is the tile rated for walls only? The tile color may appear different in person versus on the computer screen. You get my drift. For such a large investment, it may be worthy to put your hands on the tile you are going install into your kitchen or bath prior to ordering.

Tile Quality

This one is a little trickier. I once purchased a beautiful chevron pattern marble mosaic tile to install on shower walls. It was on sale, but still an expensive tile option. Upon taking the tiles out of the box, there were a few cracked tile pieces on the mosaic. This is not uncommon. However, despite taking great care (and of course following the marble tile cutting instructions), piece after piece would crumble. I packed up the tile and returned it all back to the big box store. On another project, a self-adhesive slate stone tile was purchased. And again, after all instructions were followed to a T, the adhesive would flat out not stick to the wall. Long story short, before getting yourself too deep into tile cutting and installation, test your tile out. Ensure your tile is going to work on your project before getting too much time invested only to have to return it. If you do indeed have problems with tile cracking or other installation woes, aren’t you glad you already checked to ensure you can return your tile? 😊

Rustic Stone Tile

Any time you are purchasing an uneven surface tile (think stones for the fireplace tile or focal point wall), you can bet you will have cracked stone tiles lurking in your box. Despite best packaging efforts, the Tile boxes are coming from suppliers via truck or train, loaded and unloaded with forklifts and stocked to shelves. To prevent frustration in 10-20% of your tiles being cracked and thus being short for your project, factor in an extra few boxes. Of course, ensure that any cracked or unused tiles can be returned first.  You may be able to use some of the cracked stones as fall off pieces depending on your project.

If you’re in the Newport, Mead or Spokane, Washington areas give us a call to help install your tile today.