Locating ceramic tile

[Ernie Willson]

I need to replace several broken tiles in my bathroom floor. The tile is ceramic and was installed about twelve years ago. Several tiles have cracked from children jumping up and down on the floor. I do not expect anyone to jump up and down on the floor again.

Can anyone point me to a good source (internet or otherwise) for older tile styles? I removed one tile and brought it to six stores in the central Jersey area and no one had it. It is 4.25" by 4.25" and about

1/4 inch thick and almond-white in color. One seller thought the pattern was called "Crystalline" and that it was out of production.

Thanks

EJ in NJ

[KLS]

No? Did you eliminate the children somehow?

In all seriousness, the reason your tile cracked is because the underlayment wasn't solid enough. A heavy adult could do the same damage, so be sure to fix the underlying flooring so that it no longer flexes before you replace the tiles.

[trader4]

Try googling for "tile matching service" or similar. Also, with any tile work in the future, make sure you buy an extra box or two of tile. Very cheap insurance against big problems later. Minimum is a few for this kind of repair. I prefer to have even more, so you have more flexibility.

[DanG]

This is quite a normal problem. Manufacturers change their colors constantly. You will probably not find an exact match. Your choices are limited:

Remove and replace the floor. Cut or take out a pattern to replace with a contrasting color, a bit like a diamond in the center of the floor or similar that includes the damaged tiles. Remove random tiles abut the room. Replace with a pattern of accent tile.

[Bob F]

Or, remove tiles from under the cabinet.

[gpsman]

They stopped tiling before installing cabinets more than 20 years ago. Most people who might notice are now dead.

He might get lucky though....

The problem with matching tile is differences among batches. It took me a couple times to learn to check batch numbers.

Break open a new box and set a few... then, whoops, that don't look right. Pretty disappointing when it's the last box, lemme tell you.

Maybe not so common these days, I don't know. -----

- gpsman

[norminn]

If there are some tile contractors - not stores - in the area, try calling a few to see if they might have leftovers stashed. Not likely you will find a match, but you might get lucky. Stores aren't likely to be interested unless they can sell you a box.

If the broken ones are close to each other, you might be able to replace them and some ajoining tiles to form some sort of pattern. Even replacing broken ones with 1x1 might work as a random pattern. Seeing pix and size of room would help.

If the floor is mushy enough that children jumping on it break tiles, you're probably ahead to just replace the tile and underlayment. But you've already thought of that :o)

[Rod Speed]

You could with the womens' dunny too. Unlikely they actually had women plumbers doing it and let the customers keep using it as they rebuilt it.