Glass Tile

Color is typically applied to tiles in one of two ways. Either it is mixed with molten glass, or it is applied to tiles and then fused into it by firing. When color is properly applied using either of these methods it will be stable, will not fade or delaminate and will resist the effect of moisture and aging. ‘Cold’ applications of color to an otherwise finished tile – for instance, painting onto the back of a clear tile with no subsequent firing process – is a cheap method. These tiles may look okay at first, but they will have a relatively high incidence of failure. In fact, unless the color is set into the tile with high heat it is liable to fail during or at some point after installation. Thinset and moisture can cause the tile to discolor and the layer of color may even separate from the tile.

Glass tiles are not tempered, for good reason. First, some background information: tempered glass is a type of toughened glass that has been heated above 600 °C, then rapidly cooled with forced air. This process causes the outside of the glass to become brittle. On impact, the glass will shatter into small pieces and crumble.

As a result, tempered glass can’t be cut or trimmed. It is cut to size before it is tempered; it can’t be re-worked. This makes it unsuitable for tiles, as it can’t be fitted to various site conditions.

Glass floor tiles are bonded to solid surfaces, which means that violent follow through is impossible. What is more, the bonding agents that the tile is set enables glass pieces to stick together.

About the only way that you can disguise the grout & thinset so they’re not visible is to use a piece of trim. Some manufacturers sell glass trim pieces along with their tiles. Plastic and metal trim can be found in most tile stores and big box stores, or you shop directly at the Schluter store.

You don’t need a sealer to conver the tiles, as glass tiles are impervious. But for the grout lines: once they have been damp cured (28 days), pick a grout sealer recommended by your local tile distributor, or go to the online Stonetech store. Note: remember to damp cure the grout first, or the grout lines may, in time, dry out and degrade.

We do not recommend mastic adhesives. When mastic is applied between glass tiles and a substrate, the area around the edge of the glass tends to dry and seal in the (moist) mastic that lies directly beneath the tile. Glass tiles are not porous, so this moisture remains trapped; the mastic can remain soft and moist almost indefinitely. Behind clear tiles, this phenomenon results in more than a bonding issue – mold can grow and the tiles can visibly discolor.

We recommend only white, fast-setting, polymer-modified thinset. Thinset is made with sand, cement and additives that react chemically. Note: Beware of a product called “Pre-mixed Thinset”. This is usually not a thinset material, and is simply a re-branded mastic.

In the past 12 years glass tile makers have emerged with products for contiguous glass floors. They have come up with floor coverings whose look and feel ranges from the familiar to the ultramodern. They are tiles whose reflective properties make the most of the light in a given space – especially useful in bathrooms and kitchen nooks.

The Practicality Of Light

Light makes us feel good. For health, well being, and productivity’s sake, designers and architects have responded with renewed emphasis on maximizing the use of southern exposures, skylights, and transparent glass block in new buildings. In cases where renovation isn’t an option, changing flooring and wall covering from a surface that absorbs light to one that reflects it can change the mood of a room, for the better.

A Hundred Years In The Making

Smalti tiles have been used as floor tiles since Roman times; fused glass tiles are a relatively new flooring variant, and have only been commercially available for the last ten years.

Clear glass has been used as a floor surface since the early 1900s, when glass block was introduced to provide natural light under city sidewalks and passages in manufacturing plants. Today, glass floor blocks are also used to provide illumination into a room when lit from below. Often installed in 4-foot by 4-foot panels that weigh up to 300 pounds, they are typically installed in industrial or commercial settings.

Glass floors can also take the form of laminate flooring. Glass laminate panels can be any size, and are typically made with sandwiched layers of tempered glass. They are versatile, coming in configurable colors, and also can be completely transparent or illuminated from below. They can be used in high traffic areas, such as shop or discotheque floors, where they are often textured to reduce slippage and to hide scratches.

Glass floor tiles bring some of the properties of laminate glass flooring into a more modular, convenient-sized form. Applied to a substrate like porcelain tiles, glass floor tiles do not introduce brightness from below, but make the most of existing light in a room, by reflecting it back from a floor that would otherwise be absorbing light.

Installation: What To Watch For

Glass floor tiles are usually set against a crack suppression membrane with a white, fast-setting and flexible thinset adhesive. It’s important that there are no pockets of air trapped under the tiles when they are laid, as an uneven underlay will weaken and eventually crack the tiles when they are walked on. To obviate air pockets, pieces should be back-buttered and settled into position when laid.

Wear and Tear

Will the glass support the weight? Will the glass get scratched over time? Will they break under our weight? Like ceramic tiles, glass floor tiles will shatter if they are hammered or subjected to sudden and violent impact. Glass floor tiles have typically passed stringent ASTM standards – if the floor is in an area of high impact use, they will need to be specifically floor-rated for this purpose.

Smalti floor tiles have a cloudy, rough texture that will not show scratches any more than a ceramic tile and also provide anti-slip protection. Translucent, fused glass tiles need to be etched or textured, to provide anti-scratching protect against scratching and to give anti-slip properties.

The color of both types of floor tile is extra durable. In the case of smalti floor tiles, the color is typically consistent throughout the tile; fused glass floor tiles have their color sealed in with a 10mm protective coating of glass.

Slippery When Wet?

Unless treated, a normal glass tile is no different from polished porcelain tile in terms of skid resistance. Like any high gloss ceramic tile, glass tiles are usually slippery when wet, and for safety reasons, commercial floors in high traffic areas that get exposed to rain or spillage are often marked with “caution – slippery when wet” signs. But in the home, and most workplaces, the use of such signs is neither practical nor desirable. If small format (1 × 1″ or smaller) tiles are used on floors, the relatively frequent grout lines create texture that inhibit slippage. For this reason, tile setters sometimes introduce un-textured glass tile mosaic inserts into fields of large format ceramic tiles. Glass floor mosaic tiles are also used in shower pans, creating a continuous surface with glass wall tiles.

If you are using large format glass field tiles on floors, you will need to choose a tile that is specifically floor-rated. Glass tile manufacturers Villiglas, Interstyle, Oceanside and Vetrotile all manufacture large format glass floor tiles. They are made with a textured surface that provides a high coefficient of friction, mitigating or eliminates slippage, while still delivering the luminous qualities of glass wall tiles.

Three ways to make recycled glass tile

To make glass from recycled glass sources, the raw materials must be free of contaminants (paper, dirt, wrappers, etc.) and must be of uniform source and color. Typical sources of glass for recycling are bottles, jars or window glass.

Different types of glass have different composition and color; waste glass should be carefully sorted before use. Different glass sources have different coefficients of expansion. As a result, the glass will not cool as a uniform mass. The negative results during cooling can range from cracking to explosion.

Different manufacturing techniques give rise to different results. There are three common methods of making tiles from recycled glass:

Small mosaic tiles are usually made from glass that is brought to a molten state along with glass color, poured over an iron table and pressed with a form (cookie cutter) to create the small mosaics. This technique involves small batch sizes and labor-intensive process of tile sheet assembly.

The glass and color mixture is heated to a high temperature until it achieves a molten state. Once cooled, the pieces are separated and the tiles can be assembled into sheets that are easy to install. This technique is well understood and is relatively easy to set up. The final product consists of small mosaic tiles with some color variation. This variation is not critical, and may even be desirable. One ecological advantage of this technique is that the broken tiles and production waste are kept to a minimum because of the small module of the tile. However, one disadvantage is the high heat required to heat the tile – approximately 1400 degrees C.

Large glass tiles (50mm x 50mm and larger) can be manufactured using the same technique as above, with one added step. The glass must be annealed in an annealing oven (kept at 500 C over several hours) to remove the stress created during the cooling process. Larger tile modules create more production waste, and require more color control and quality control.

Glass tiles can also be made from cullet (glass that has been crushed and sorted into uniform particles) and placed in ceramic molds. This technique involves heating the glass to relatively low temperatures (800 C) followed by annealing. The advantages include lower firing temperatures and a faster production cycle. The disadvantages are – the colors are dictated by the color of glass cullet available from the recycling stream, i.e. green, brown or clear bottle glass.

“Art glass tiles” are a road less traveled. They are made by studio glass artists in smaller lots and are generally made specifically for a client or project. Generally these tiles can be customized specifically to a client’s color, texture, style and size preferences and even incorporate custom designs to match other motifs in the room. For example, would you like your tiles to match certain fabrics, a specific paint color or type of stone? Would you like a continuous wall panel or smaller accent tiles? These are the types of variation that can be specified when ordering art glass tiles.

Art glass – truly
one-of-a-kind.

The versatility of art glass tiles textures and appearance is at best, very difficult to emulate on a manufacturing line. The glass artisan specializing in tiles has many glass colors and styles to choose from when creating these works of art just as a painter has myriad shades of colors on their palette. And as the application is specifically designed for, there might be a little more effort involved in having tiles “made to order”, but the result will truly be one-of-a-kind.

To stretch your budget, consider using factory glass tiles as the “field tiles” and mixing in custom art glass “accent tiles”. Field tiles make up the bulk of the tiles in any project whereas accent tiles can be incorporated in much smaller quantities. Glass Art accessories such as accent tiles are the ideal solution for enhancing any room. Combine glass with woods, metals and textiles to create dynamic, memorable interior designs.

Another possibility when working with glass tiles is matching your custom art glass tiles to custom glass vessel sinks or art glass lighting such as chandeliers, pendants and sconces. There are very few mediums that offer this type of design versatility. The work of glass artisans can be coordinated to go far beyond simple wall covering, to create several coordinating functional works of art for your home.

To explore the custom glass option that is right for you, you can go to favorite artists, or go to a custom glass dealer. Major tile dealers tend to deal in high volume sales, and are not usually positioned to offer art glass solutions. Instead, as art glass grows in popularity, and the internet is increasingly adopted as a low-cost distribution and promotion mechanism, we are seeing a trend towards glass art collectives and glass art dealers on the web. These organizations showcase the work of several artists; and provide services that range from simple sales channels to design support for integrated glass design for the home.

An example of such a service is the company I own and curate, the Glass Artists Gallery. We have been helping designers and homeowners all across North America with art glass tiles, lighting, sinks and other functional glass art for years. This is not really a “brick and mortar gallery” but rather a resource for the trade and discerning homeowners for functional and architectural glass.

Jack Healy is owner of the following online sources for functional art: The Glass Artists Gallery and parent company, The Functional Art Gallery .

– Jack Healy

Glass blocks are popular in both commercial and home applications because they bring with them both transparency and mass – delivering a sophisticated blend of two apparent opposites: separation and inclusion.

Stylecap – A line of dedicated edging tiles that sustain the look and feel of glass block

A contemporary application for glass block is the partial or deconstructed divider. When used for this purpose the top and side surfaces of some blocks are left exposed. Until recently, it has been up to the buyer to either leave the opaque glass block edges exposed, or find custom plastic or ceramic fittings for them. In any case, the result has been surface edges that sharply contrast with the transparent look & feel of the blocks.

Stylecap, an Interstyle brand, has been introduced to bring buyers a more uniform surface with a line of fused glass tiles specifically designed for glass block. As the number of tiles required on a given glass block job is often small, the manufacturer accepts small orders from distributors. Colors and sizes are also customizable.

This product enables designers to approach a contiguous glass surface, bringing a more consistent, transparent feel to glass block partitions. When a substitute for traditional grout is invented for glass, one that is similarly transparent-looking, an uninterrupted, functional glass surface will finally be within reach.

General Technical Properties
Glass tiles are frost proof, resistant to fading, discoloration, and chemical damage, and are impervious to water and stains. These properties make them suitable for home use, including backsplashes, swimming pools and spas, and various outdoor applications.

Because they contain glass, these tiles can also be more susceptible to chipping and cracking than ceramic tiles. They can disintegrate if they are not installed correctly, if placed in an area where they are exposed to sudden & extreme temperature change, or if they come in violent contact with hard metal objects. Always check with the manufacturer for specifications before you install.