Flooring Stress Tests

Here is an excellent recipe for stress testing stone and possibly ceramic or other flooring before you buy a lot of it courtesy of the owner-builder discussion group. I’d buy a piece of the proposed flooring, and subject it to various tests,
including:

 

  • spilling about a teaspoon of: grape & blueberry juice, red wine, warm
    butter, fine flour, frypan-hot cooking oil, detergent, vinegar, a few drops
    of liquid bleach. Leave each one overnight – 8 to 12 hours, see what they
    leave behind after wiping up. The above list is selected to challenge the
    material with a variety of common solvents and corrosives. BTW, don’t let
    the bleach touch the other spills, and do this outdoors or in a garage, not
    where you’ll breathe the fumes.

 

  • dropping a glass jar of (whatever you fear staining the most) from
    counter height. Have it in a deep cardboard box and wear eye protection and
    heavy clothes, sharp glass will fly.
  • walking on it with high-heel shoes. Again with sneakers loaded with wet
    sand. Twist around like we did in the 60’s 😉
  • get a chair with metal feet, smaller the better. Lean back on the chair
    until the heaviest person u know has their weight on two metal feet. Twist
    around.That should give u a reasonable idea what to expect by way of staining and
    scuffing. Perhaps also check out ceramic tiles.