Non-Slip Granite Tile Treatment

QUESTION:

Can a granite tile be flamed to give it the non-slip look/effect?

ANSWER:

If you are asking if a "flamed" finish on granite will make the surface less slippery and give you better traction, the answer is yes.

I don't know what the "non-slip look" is though.

A polished surface is very smooth and slick when wet. A flamed finish is rough and will provide decent traction even when very wet.

Actually, any type of natural stone surface finish besides "polished" will provide decent non-slip traction.

Depending on how wet the surface is likely to be, the best idea is to install "honed" granite tiles. A honed finish can be a bit slick with a lot of water on the flooring, but generally it provides a good non-slip floor tile surface.

A honed granite will also be easy to find and install. Very common to use honed granite and marble tile even for bathroom floor tile.

A honed surface is far easier to clean, maintain and repair if ever needed, plus it will be much cheaper than a flamed finish, which requires a lot of work.

Another tip is to use smaller tiles. If you use 12x12 inch or larger tiles, then the surface finish is very important if slip resistance is a concern.

But, you can easily improve this by using say... mosaic tiles, which will provide an excellent non-slip surface even when polished. Well, not so much the tiles themselves, but all the grout lines give good traction.

Of course, installing mosaic tiles over a large surface will be very expensive and won't be as solid of a floor requiring more intensive granite care and maintenance.

But you don't have to use such small tiles. Even using 6x6 inch or 8x8 inch honed granite tile will make safe flooring with low risk of slip and fall accidents.

An even cheaper... but still very effective solution... is to apply this specialized ANTI-SLIP Tile Floor Cleaner, which improves traction on marble, travertine and granite tile a great deal (porcelain and ceramic tile too).

If the floor is already installed I'd try the ANTI-SLIP cleaner first, before going through all the trouble and expense of re-finishing the tile to a rougher, more textured surface.

If not installed yet then a smaller, honed floor tile will do the trick. And using using the ANTI-SLIP cleaner on this type of floor will definitely provide very safe, secure, non-slip footing.

Hope that answers your question.