For a multitude of reasons, granite tiles are topping the rank of the favorite building materials used in residential, industrial, and commercial building constructions. If one has to trace the roots of granite, he or she will learn that it is a volcanic rock that has been shaped out of immense heat and pressure. The rocks’ appearances are naturally unique thanks to the crystalline image that is innate in it. Granite is basically a natural stone reputed for its being the hardest as well as the densest.
The granite tiles are cut, shaped, and polished on one side. Though they may be hard, their surfaces are smooth and nice to the touch. Being hard and durable, the granite tiles are often employed in household applications such as flooring materials, kitchen top equipments, and wall foundations.
When the aesthetic sense becomes a major concern, granite tiles top the list. As you enter any edifice, you will usually see granite tiles used as the flooring materials. At home, granite tiles usually greet you as you go over a glimpse of the kitchen. The popularity and wide use of granite tiles are increasing up to this day. Modernity speaks for itself, and when beauty combined with durability tops the list of priorities, granite tiles come into play.
When deciding on a makeover for the kitchen, granite tiles can’t be beat. They are able to bear a tremendous amount of heat, moisture, and pressure. When you are bored with vinyl for your bathroom floors, you can always opt to replace them with granite tiles.
Among the rest of the components that comprise the whole of the kitchen, it is the kitchen countertop that receives the worst abuse. Such abuse includes hot pots that are placed on top, sharp kitchen utensils’ scratches, and the use of abrasive cleansers are the usual woes that form part of the kitchen counter’s major concerns.
The design, hue, and style of granite tiles, especially when thoroughly polished, affix more aesthetic value to the surface. The granite tiles are of various thicknesses, depending on the purpose it fulfills, and are suitable for varied applications.
Granite provides detailed information on Granite, Granite Countertops, Granite Tiles, Marble and Granite and more. Granite is affiliated with Granite Tile Countertops.
Granite Tiles
An Introduction to Granite Rocks
Granites are widely occurring felsic, intrusive and igneous type of rocks. The texture of granite is medium to coarse, rarely with some crystals bigger than the groundmass forming rock which is called as porphyry. Granites are found in different colors like pink, dark gray, green, yellow, red or sometimes even in black and gold depending upon its mineralogy and chemistry. Sometimes Granites occur in circular depressions encircled by a series of hills that are formed by the metamorphic hornfels. Granites are often massive lacking internal structures. They are tough, hard and it has gained widespread use for constructive purposes. 2.75g/cm3 is the average density of granite. If you look at the word 'granite', it comes from the Latin word 'granum' which is a grain, in reference to its coarse grained constitution.
According to a scientific diagram, Granites are classified for coarse grained plutonic rocks - granitoids and it is named based upon the percentage of quartz, alkali feldspar - sanidine, orthoclase or microcline. Granite like rocks which are silica under saturated might have a feldspathoid such as nepheline. According to modern petrologic, true granite contains both alkali feldspars and plagioclase. When a granitoid lacks or almost lacks plagioclase the rock is said to be alkali granite. If the granitoid carries <10% of orthoclase, then it is called tonalite. Amphibole and Pyroxene are common in tonalite. Granites that have both biotite micas and muscovite are called two-mica or binary granite. Typically two-mica granites are low in plagioclase and higher in potassium; A-type or S-type granites. Rhyolite is a volcanic equivalent of plutonic granite.
Presently Earth is the only place Granites are known to form a main part of continental crust. Often granites occur as relatively small, less than 100 km² of stock masses and also in batholiths which are associated with orogenic mountain ranges. Smaller dikes of granite compositions are known as aplites and are often linked with margins of granite intrusions. In some places along with granites, very coarse grained pegmatite masses occur. Granites have been intruded into Earth's crust during all geologic periods like earthquakes, although most of it has happened in the Precambrian age. Granite rocks are distributed widely throughout the Earth's continental crust and it is the most abundant basement rocks which underlies the relatively thin sedimentary layer of the continents.
In spite of being fairly common across the globe, the places with the most commercial granite quarries are located in Norway, Sweden - Bohuslän, Finland, Northern Portugal in Chaves, Spain mostly in Galicia and Extremadura, India Brazil and several other countries in southern Africa, such as Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Today granites are widely used in making luxury floors, kitchen tables, office tables, bath rooms and tubs.
Brayan Peter is an expert author for Granite Countertops in Houston. He written many articles like Houston Granite Countertops, Granite Houston, Granite Texas, Granite New Orleans and Marble Countertops. For more information visit our site. Contact me at brayan.peter@gmail.com
Why Granite Flooring is Hard to Beat!
There are lots of different materials in modern use for flooring, so why granite? Well, for starters, granite is probably one of the hardest, most durable and long lasting mediums available for floors. In the home, different rooms may benefit from different types of stone floor, but for kitchens, granite stands out head and shoulders above the rest. It is, of course a personal choice dictated by use, amount of human traffic and overall aesthetics. Here we will discuss the pros and cons of granite flooring as a great looking, extremely durable, easy to maintain and easy to clean material for your interior floor and how granite flooring really is hard to beat!
Granite floors and kitchens go together like hand and glove. The kitchen is the one room in the house where the floor gets maximum use and suffers the most in the way of spills of all kinds, dropped items likely to cause damage and constant cleaning. So granite, being the most capable flooring material to endure everything a kitchen can throw at it, really is a great choice for that room in the house. Granite comes in many different styles and patterns so it will always look good and aesthetically pleasing.
Granite, being one of the hardest, most durable materials for flooring there is, makes it a supreme choice for a kitchen floor. It is resilient to staining as well as acid and alkali chemical spills. It will resist grease, fat and oil spills as well as boiling water, tea and coffee, fizzy, sugary drinks; in fact just about anything a hyperactive chef can throw at it! It will survive being bombarded by falling cutlery, crockery and glassware as long as the resulting rubble is swiftly swept up and not left to be ground in by a myriad of shod feet. This leads us on to keeping your granite floor clean.
Cleaning and maintenance of a granite floor is a relatively simple procedure. Sweeping and mopping with warm water daily, as well as following any accidental crockery breakages will keep it clean and shiny. A once weekly clean with stone soap, followed by a rinsing mop with plain water helps to keep the floor sealed and shiny. Having said this, there is one disadvantage of granite flooring that needs to be highlighted.
Despite its hardness, granite can be scratched by quartz. Quartz is a sand-like material that can be brought into a home on the soles of shoes. The heavy human traffic that a kitchen gets could cause those small, sandy particles that are deposited over the surface of the granite to cause minute scratches. This will create a dulling effect on the surface, which, if left to worsen over time, will require specialist treatment to recover its original lustre. Restoring a badly scratched and dulled granite floor is expensive and there is a good chance that the process with alter the colour of the granite. For this reason, it is best to practice "prevention is better than cure" and get into the habit of sweeping and mopping daily to minimise this potential problem.
Despite its one easily avoidable disadvantage, a granite floor makes an extremely good looking, durable, hard wearing and easily cleaned and maintained surface custom made for most designs of kitchen. So for kitchen floors, granite really is hard to beat.
Michael RussellYour Independent guide to Flooring
Strand Bamboo Flooring Can Make A Beautiful Difference In Your Home
There has been a shift toward more environmentally friendly home building materials in recent years to such an extent that it is possible to build an entire home from materials that have been manufactured using more sustainable methods and materials. If you are remodeling your existing home you can choose from among these green products for your home improvement projects as well.
Strand bamboo flooring has become one of the more popular green building materials in recent times. To make it, many small bamboo fibers are compressed and bound together with adhesive to create planks. The adhesive used in the manufacturing process of this type of bamboo wood flooring makes it harder than almost all other types of wood flooring.
There are all sorts of advantages to strand bamboo flooring. The major one is that it can withstand almost any kind of treatment and endure over a long period of time. It is so strong and impervious that you can do nearly anything to it without causing damage. There are other types of bamboo flooring that are softer and more likely to show scratches, but this woven bamboo flooring will hold up beautifully.
Another one of the benefits of this kind of flooring is the beauty that it will bring to the area where you choose to install it. Because of its durability, strand bamboo can be used indoors and out in almost any part of the home. The floor looks like hardwood flooring, but provides you with more ease of use and durability than hardwood floors.
Strand bamboo flooring is considered the latest material to provide the beauty of hardwood floors without the worry about depleting the environment. Bamboo grows rapidly and replenishes itself continually, making this the choice of environmentally aware citizens. If your desire is to "go green" then the unique qualities of bamboo will fill that need. You will be proud of your home when it is enhanced by this kind of flooring.
So, if you are looking around for strand bamboo flooring, check out the Internet first. You'll locate lots of companies that have all sorts of flooring options that would work for you. Get precise room measurements first, so you can get the best possible estimate. It doesn't matter where you buy it, with all the beautiful bamboo flooring options available, you can't go wrong!
Today, many people are using ecologically responsible home building materials. Strand bamboo flooring is one of the most popular "green" building materials. The flooring planks are made of fibers bound with an adhesive, making this type of bamboo wood flooring even harder than most wood floors. Some kinds of bamboo floors are delicate, but the strand type is durable, easy to maintain, and beautiful. Many styles of woven bamboo flooring can be found online. Wood flooring specialists will be happy to work with you and can give you a price quote based on your room dimensions.
Bamboo Flooring - 4 Top Reasons Why You Should Consider It For Your Next Floor
Bamboo flooring offers benefits that are hard to pass up. It's durable, visually appealing and green to boot. If you never considered bamboo before, you should at least give it its day in court. And here are the top 4 reasons why you should.
* It's Hard and Durable, Like Wood
Bamboo flooring is as hard as wood and harder than some well-known species of wood like maple and oak. But it's not actually wood. Rather, bamboo is a form of grass. Despite its misleading name however, it feels and cuts just like wood. It even looks like wood, albeit with a slightly different grain pattern.
* It's Attractive, Visually Interesting and Exotic
Bamboo offers just as much if not more visual interest in a floor as does wood. Bamboo flooring comes in a couple of natural shades depending on how it's processed but it can also be stained like wood. When it's manufactured in a horizontal grain pattern, it presents a unique, almost exotic grain orientation, thanks to the "knuckles" that are naturally present on bamboo stalks.
* It's Eco-Friendly and Sustainable
Bamboo is a green material because it's renewable and sustainable. Bamboo reaches maturity in 3 to 7 years, dependent on its intended use. This quick growth means it produces material that can be harvested in a fraction of the time it takes some hardwood trees to mature. Another plus is that the bamboo plant itself isn't consumed in the harvesting process. Only the culms or "stalks" of the plant are cut with no detriment to the plant itself. Once cut, the plant regenerates new culms to be grown and harvested again. So not only is it a renewable resource, it's highly sustainable given its fast regeneration.
* It's Readily Available in Various Forms
Despite its exotic nature and far-off origins bamboo flooring is easily obtainable. There are a plenty of resources available and you can buy it in several forms with options on how it's installed. For example, you can buy bamboo flooring in solid planks, similar to conventional hardwood flooring or as an engineered product to be installed as a floating floor.
Is bamboo perfect? No. But no flooring material is. However it's durability, aesthetics and 'green-ness' certainly make it a top contender in any flooring decision.
Robert Levesque is the founder of Home Style Choices LLC and is passionate about helping homeowners make choices on the products available to fashion their new or remodeled home.
To find out more about bamboo flooring as well as considerations and resources, visit http://www.home-style-choices.com/bamboo-flooring.html
Comparing Bamboo Flooring And Laminate Flooring
You might want to know about the history of Laminate flooring. It might be good for you to know that a Swedish company introduced Laminate flooring in 1977.
The housekeepers do not think about the maintenance and the cleaning process of flooring. That is why they are being ignored every time. There are ways that you can get your flooring installed in such a way that they never get spoiled. Laminate flooring is such flooring that needs to be installed in the house that they never get spoiled. They do not need any special maintenance and they are very easy to maintain. All you have to take care of is dusting.
If we see the other dimension of flooring type, we will find out about wooden flooring. Actually wooden flooring is a natural flooring material and if you install it, you will give your floor a natural and new look. The demand and the high rate of purchase of this type of flooring in the houses are due to its design and look on the floor.
These days, when people look for wooden flooring, they mostly go for bamboo flooring. This is due to the reason that only design and look is not the only thing that people look for. There are also many aspects that might inspire people to buy some specific kind of flooring material. Bamboo is such a material that gives you look, inspiration and also the guarantee to fight against insects and moisture.
Actually one of the advantages that bamboo flooring can give you is that this flooring is durable. You can see if bamboo is in some house or some office, no matter what pet tries to destroy it or whatever is the reason, bamboo flooring remains durable.
As a matter of fact, if you see laminate, then you will find out that it is not actually a natural material. If you are looking for maintenance and its cost and reliability, then laminate flooring comes to the top of the list. This is due to the reason that you can apply water easily on this floor and nothing will happen to it. If you have split something on the floor then there is no need to remove it quickly. The stain can be removed any time you want because of the reason that it does not soaks any thing.
It reduces the cost on the maintenance of the floor also. Unlike wooden floors, these floors do not require waxing, oiling or staining. This is probably the best quality of laminate flooring that people demand.
The reason of high usage of bamboo flooring is due to its durability and if you have applied wax on the floor, then it also prevents from insects and other such aspects. Bamboo flooring is also good for moisture, i.e. it does not get soiled after moisture and can be cleaned.
That is why, you can choose from any flooring material in your house making sure what your requirements are.
For more information about flooring please visit http://www.therightflooring.com
