flyleft,

I think the US stone/tile industry is moving towards larger format tiles (with the associated improvements required in floor construction).

Here are some photos i took of the airport in mumbai earlier this year. Gorgeous granite slabs lined the entire airport terminal. floors, walls, counters. The restrooms had slabs of red quartz,looked very modern.

The key difference between US (home) installation and others is that the floors are polished on site. So after the slabs are installed, the whole floor is ground down to apolish, to be flat, groutless, and uniform looking.

Hey Pharoah,

Interesting photos. DH works with many people from India and hears all the time about how slab granite is a standard building material over there...

I was wondering if maybe the Stonetech was primarily a commercial flooring tile, actually. I'm going to call the tile store that carries it tomorrow and find out what I can about it. What do you think--I trust your design taste--do you think using 18x36 tile in a basically 5x6 powder room would be silly? Should I cut it down? It looked rectified, which I'm insisting on, since I'm *not* cutting any more tile edges down by hand, or at least by grinder, now that I have my trusty 10"er :)

flyleft,

18x36 tiles would look fantastic in a small space. I wish the marble I am using came in rectangles. I REALLY like 2:1 aspect ration tiles in large format. You could even run it up one wall to make it a feature!
Some time back i saw stone 'planks' ie. long pieces of stone used like you would use hardwood flooring. Very creative and looked unique.

Do you have pictures of the tile?

Flat, yes. But not groutless. If you look closely, there ARE very minute grout joints, and they ARE grouted.

all i can see in that airport is a cracked open head waiting to happen :) it's crazy enough running through carpeted airports... i can't imagine trying to keep my footing & wheel a suitcase & bag behind me :) looks beautiful, but scary

the large tiles sound nice - i love the 2:1 aspect too, but i agree with casey's comments - i have a hard enough time with 12x12 - can't imagine trying to heft those bad boys around :)

lisa

Just checked their website. The tiles are 11mm (that is a little less than 1/2"). Although heavy, any competent tiler should be able to do that (with an assistant's help :) ). Bill V can address the deflection issue. I am not sure how the size of tile and deflection are related.

I think it would look fabulous! Of course, you'd need to plan your layout carefully to maximize the 'slab' look. And floor prep would need to be pretty serious...

FWIW, we're planning on using a 16" x 32" slab in our master suite (if we ever get to build the darn thing!). We were going to use it on the walls as well as wainscoting.

sombreuil, thanks for "weighing" in :) I have actually this morning lifted them around a lot while choosing sample colors and it's not that bad. They're only a slightly thicker normal porcelain tile thickness, as pharoah identified.

And sweeby, actually the tile, acc. to United, is 16x32, not 18x36, so it will be similar to what you're using (which is what?). It's so tempting to put it everywhere. Unfortunately they don't carry it in the 24x48, because I would have just made the counter out of it too with a polished edge and front apron (it's at most a 22" x 48" counter) and had fun with some fabulous accent tile, and called it a day.

Bill, if you see this--what would be the considerations you would have before undertaking installing something this size? Thanks. (or any other tile pros, same question)

all i can see in that airport is a cracked open head waiting to happen :) it's crazy enough running through carpeted airports... i can't imagine trying to keep my footing & wheel a suitcase & bag behind me :) looks beautiful, but scary

There are coatings most commercial buildings will use that make tile and stone floors more slip resistant.

Bill V can address the deflection issue. I am not sure how the size of tile and deflection are related.

Due to the fact that the larger tiles will (obviously) cover more area, the floor has to be that much stiffer to keep the tiles from cracking or popping loose. Even ceramic tiles-- if I'm using an 18x18 or larger, the floor will meet STONE specs (which are twice as strong as ceramic) before I'll agree to install it. As for installing large format stone, I don't think I'd install it over anything but slab, unless a structural engineer was consulted, and even then, it would be wire reinforced mudset.

Fly, I think I just partially answered your question, as well. :-) The other consideration would be floor prep, if it IS thinset (actually medium bed mortar) over slab. That floor has to be just about dead flat, and even then I'll spend alot of time buttering and/ or scraping to make it so.