Glass Mosaic Tile Series –part 2: How to Tell if a Glass Mosaic Tile Has Good Quality or not
There are several glass mosaic tiles available in the market today (we cover that in our part 1 article). But in terms of manufacturing, there are mainly two kinds: vitreous glass mosaic tile and crystal glass mosaic tile.
One type is Vitreous Glass Mosaic Tile, which was the original glass mosaic tile and has been used widely to make swimming pool. To tell the quality if it is good or not, the hardness is the key thing you need to ask. Vitreous glass mosaic tile is not as strong as crystal glass mosaic although when it installed, inside the grout it will stay there for lifetime. You can tell the hardness by scratching the surface of the glass mosaic tile by your finger nail. If it can be easily scratched, then it may be a little problem. The second thing is that you if the color is consistent. Use your common sense and judgment on this.
For crystal Glass Mosaic Tile, the most popular glass mosaic in terms of total sales volume in North American glass tile market. One thing you need to pay attention is: for quality glass mosaic, the mosaic after the color is being coated should be put into the high temperature kiln to make the color stay for life time. Therefore, when you are buying glass mosaic, make sure that you ask your glass mosaic vendor the question â??if the back color coating is fired?â? some glass mosaic factories, the bad ones, to save money on the manufacturing process, do not go through this process thus will create big color fading problems in 1 or 2 years.
If a factory skips the kiln firing process, they save hugely on the fuel costs (the most equipment use fuel oil or natural gas to heat the kiln) and labor costs. Thus there will be price difference between quality glass mosaic and defective glass mosaic; therefore, you need to ask your vendors and they need to be honest for their answers. Sometimes, there are chances that some distributors or showroom stores do not even know the trick here, if they simply ask for low price from their suppliers or manufacturers, or get their sources from the lowest price bid, they may have the problem that they do not even be aware of. That is something you need to watch out and look into their eyes to make sure they know what your question â??â??if your glass mosaic back color coating is fired?â? mean.
Peter Chen is a co-founder of http://www.BuilderElements.com ,Peter was fascinated by the beauty of architecture and building products. He transformed his career track from “high tech” (use to work for companies like drugstore.com, a NASADAQ listed company, and GOOGLE) to the “low tech” industry of building materials distribution and retailing. Peter would like to share his experience and knowledge about building and home improvement materials with you by writing a series of articles.
Peter is also writing articles about the culture gap between the western and the east especially between US and China. Would be fun to learn the culture difference and the impact of it.
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