Home Construction: Flooring

[sohu]

I have decided to go for unicolor cement tile flooring. Link.

[viren]

Very helpful post indeed. Selecting flooring is very crucial in properties coz changing it means having your entire home messed up.

[blrsiteseeker]

are these unicolor cement tiles available in India? Please post information on stores/contact for this. Thank you.

I have decided to go for unicolor cement tile flooring. Link.

[sohu]

are these unicolor cement tiles available in India? Please post information on stores/contact for this. Thank you.

My architect knows the source of getting these tiles. We have not yet ordered it. Pls pm me your contact details.

[Umang]

I’m sharing my experience on buying marbles for our house.

Marble or granite? For us, synthetic ones are taboo which we grudgingly accepted for toilets, weathering course & parking. For our earlier home in Singapore, we used Greek Thassos white ten years back and in spite of not so good maintenance, it’s still good. In fact, it looked almost new two years back when we re-polished. For comparison, we tried granite two years back in a small outhouse in Chennai and we see that for our habit of sitting in floor/bean bag, granite is no way near marble in terms of comfort in hot Chennai/Singapore weather. The major con of marble we see is the easy staining but this is partly offset by the ability to re-polish. Other advantages of granite are the availability of really huge slabs minimizing joints and it’s availability in South minimizing transport cost. We however decided to go for Marble for all rooms & stairs but for HT & TT rooms where it’ll be wooden flooring.

We are keen on pure white and after looking at all types of stones available in Stona exhibition in Bangalore in Feb (a must see), decided on Makrana white.

We flew to Delhi and drove to Makrana. We could have flown to Jaipur but tickets were expensive and also we wanted to buy some Chandeliers in Chandni Chowk. Surprisingly Makrana looked deserted with hardly any active shops. They mentioned that yield in the mines are now very low and they have to go quite deep. Stones there are expensive (300+ Rs) and even then only small slabs and lots are available. So we went to Kishangarh (100Km from Jaipur) for the Morwad white which was our second choice. These Morwad white marble costs Rs 25 to 250 based on whiteness and absence of black/green stains. I’m not sure how much cheaper it is compared to Chennai but I feel it should be 10-20% cheaper buying direct from Rajasthan. The main advantage is the wide choice. Let me list the key points.

1) I think going to Makrana is a waste. Kishangarh is sufficient.
2) I took a “consultant” with me. Though I paid only 2% + expenses, I think I could have got a better deal & done better without him. Things are so organized there that a consultant is not needed. The consultant earlier told me that the place is filled with touts/cheats and is difficult to do paper work. It is not so. We can easily identify and bypass the touts and also it is well organized there and we can arrange everything on own.
3) Don’t be fooled by the top (front) slabs. They hide the horrible ones deep down which we have to take since the entire lot needs to be taken. Open and see every piece. In one lot I bought, I saw the first 50 slabs out of 70 after which the guys were “not able” to open. Later when I loaded, 10 out of the remaining 20 were horrible.
4) It is better to buy smaller lots. The % of good slabs is higher in smaller lots.
5) I took one lot of 3000Sq feet (70Rs / Sq ft) and another 2000 Sq ft (175 Rs per sq feet). After negotiation by the consultant, I got a 10% discount from these “list” prices.
6) The shop guys were very liberal in the measurements. They reduced 1-2 inches from the undamaged edges resulting in at least 5% under measurement. The consultant said that it is because of him but I think that is the usual practice to take care of transit damage.
7) We also bought some green marble for borders. I wanted to buy some sand stone slabs but could not due to time. These will do great as stepping stones in lawns. We however managed to buy some landscaping items such as stone bench and some statues made from sand stone and loaded in the truck.
8) We packed all in a container. A container can take up to 23 tons our lots came to 21. Transport cost for a container to site in Chennai was 70,000Rs by truck and 60,000Rs by train/truck. We did by train but had problems with clearing in Chennai due to sales tax. For own use there is no sales tax but since we did not have a plan approval (ECR!), it took some time to convince. If by truck, we need to give a copy of plan approval to the driver to clear through state boundaries. The container arrived in our site after 20 days without any damage. Truck should have taken under 10 days.
9) The guys who loaded are real experts. They did in 2 hours. Their packing is also great and the whole thing came undamaged. Unloading took 7 hours!
10)Only 15-25% slabs are good (all white). So selecting the same type for all rooms will give a good number of clean pieces for main areas such as hall.

Oh my God. You have to be so careful in India. The West really spoils us. We start taking everything and everyone at their word.

Really love how you are building your house from the ground up. I think everybody should be able to design and build their own home instead of living in anonymous, undifferentiated dwellings. Marble is a great material for hot countries.

[Umang]

The reason the floors feel so cold is because the marble and RCC slab underneath are excellent thermal insulators. They retain the cold temperature provided by AC's and prevent the heat from outside leaking in and wasting energy. Without them the floor will be as hot as the floor outside.

If you have glass windows with aluminum (or steel frame), you can see the difference. They are bad insulators and feel warmer than other parts of the room when you have AC running. For windows, it is advisable to use UPVC frames rather than aluminum.

Wood is also a good insulator (with thermal conductivity fo <0.2 W/mK). Marble is about 10x that. But that is not such a big deal since the RCC slabs have a K of less than 0.5 and are the backbone of all construction. They are far thicker compared to normal tile of wood used in the US

So are you saying that we could have marble floors with central heating in the West and they would keep the house warm and cosy?

[Umang]

For our 24*12 balcony which is exposed to rain & shine we had planned to lay marble and have even procured the slabs. We are however in two minds now since there are suggestions that since the flooring is exposed to rain and shine, it is better to go for tiles.

Another room where we are in two minds is the game room in basement where we’ll have a TT table, small sofa set and kids toys/play area. We planned for wooden flooring thinking it will provide better shock absorption while playing but now thinking of marble since we may have extra slabs.

Please give your opinion on both.

Please don't go for tiles. They are so garish and nouveau-riche. Marble ages beautifully. Stained marble imparts a sense of character and age.