Ceramic or porcelain tile vs. luxury vinyl flooring. Which is better for a bathroom floor?
Not only do bathroom floors get a lot of use, but they also get exposed to a lot of moisture. As most of us know, wood-based flooring, like hardwood, or laminate doesn’t hold up well in a wet environment. This understanding leads most of us to make the wise decision of using an extremely water-resistant flooring material.
The most popular types of “waterproof” flooring materials are ceramic/porcelain tile and the many different styles of vinyl flooring. But, what are the differences between these different materials? And, which one is better?
What is ceramic or porcelain tile?
Ceramic tile and porcelain tile are very similar, but they have a few differences. Both products are made from clay and earth minerals. They are both baked in large ovens, called kilns. The installation of these products is the same, they are both installed by bedding them in a cement product called thin-set mortar. The joints between the different tiles are then filled with another cement-based (or sometimes a synthetic) product called grout.
The primary difference between ceramic tiles and porcelain tiles is their density.
Ceramic tiles are made from softer clay, and they are fired (baked) at lower temperatures. Because of this, they are softer, more absorptive, and less expensive.
Porcelain tiles are made from more dense clay and they are fired at higher temperatures. This makes them denser, less absorptive, harder wearing, and more expensive.
While there are ceramic tiles that are rated for flooring applications, the dense, hard-wearing nature of porcelain tile makes it a much more popular choice for flooring applications. In residential construction, ceramic tile is primarily used in wall applications, like showers or kitchen backsplashes.
Because porcelain tile is more commonly used in flooring applications, I will refer to porcelain tile in the remainder of this article, just be aware that much of what I say will also apply to flooring-grade ceramic tile.
What is vinyl flooring?
There are many different variations of vinyl flooring, from sheet vinyl to vinyl plank, to luxury vinyl and engineered vinyl. Vinyl is a plastic product, so all of these products are waterproof (the joints between the sheets, planks, or tiles aren’t always waterproof, though). The similarity all these products share is that they are composed of a vinyl base, a decorative film that adds the color and texture, and a wear layer to protect the decorative film. Where the differences come in is the size, shape, and style of the final product, and what base it is attached to.
Obviously, sheet vinyl comes in a huge sheet that covers a large floor area with few, if any seams. Vinyl planks come in long, narrow rectangular “planks”, and vinyl tile products are cut into smaller rectangles, to mimic the shape and look of porcelain tiles.
The application and installation method of this flooring will dictate what it is attached to. Glue-down vinyl products, like sheet vinyl, or glue-down vinyl tile or planks will be attached to a thin layer of plywood, on the jobsite, with a vinyl adhesive. This plywood “underlayment” provides a structure to support the flexible vinyl flooring material.
Floating vinyl floors, like the incredibly popular “click installation” Luxury Vinyl Planks or Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVP & LVT) don’t use plywood underlayment as a support structure. These products are bonded to a rigid core at the factory. This core can be made of a wood polymer composite, stone polymer composite, or a hybrid material. This core provides a support base for the flexible vinyl surface material in a very easy-to-install package.
What are the pros and cons of porcelain tile vs. vinyl flooring?
Some of the things you likely need from your flooring are as follows:
Beauty
Comfort
Ease of maintenance
Durability
Ease of installation
Low cost
Let’s take a minute to compare how these materials perform in each of these areas.
What is the best looking flooring?
Beauty is incredibly subjective. Each of us has a slightly different idea of what is and what isn’t beautiful. Because of this, beauty isn’t something that is easy to quantify. That said, most of us find incredible beauty in natural materials, like wood or stone.
Porcelain tile and vinyl flooring are both man-made materials, so neither of them has the natural colors and textures that natural wood or stone has. However, the manufacturers of both products find inspiration in natural products, and they seek to replicate the beauty of natural products in their materials. Historically, porcelain tile products have been really good in this regard, with many people finding the colors and textures of porcelain tile to be very aesthetically pleasing.
When vinyl products were first starting to become more prevalent, the same couldn’t always be said about them. Today’s vinyl products are much better, though. The vinyl planks that are manufactured today look incredibly similar to real wood boards, and the visual difference between porcelain tile and some of today’s vinyl tile products has become almost imperceptible.
There is a huge variation in the aesthetic qualities of different flooring products, even those of the same composition. But when we compare today’s luxury vinyl flooring products to porcelain tile, I believe they are pretty close to equal in the beauty department.
What is the most comfortable flooring?
One of the most important things to consider in your bathroom flooring decision is comfort. You will likely be stepping in and out of the bathtub or shower in bare feet. How the flooring feels underfoot will have a huge effect on your quality of life as you use your new bathroom!
What is the first thing you think about when you envision yourself stepping out of the shower onto a bare bathroom floor? If you are like most of us, you shivered at the very thought of doing that! Most of us have experienced bathroom floors that are so incredibly cold and uncomfortable that we avoid touching them with our bare feet! We certainly don’t want you to have that experience with your new floors!
Porcelain tile floors are known for feeling cold to the touch. Most of us have experienced cold, uncomfortable porcelain tile floors.
Vinyl floors are known for being a bit less cold to the touch. Because of this, many people will consider vinyl floors to be more comfortable than porcelain tile floors.
There are some options for making porcelain tile floors warmer to the touch. One of the most popular of these is the addition of electric (or hydronic) heating elements to the floor. These heating elements can heat the floor just enough that it feels comfortable underfoot, or they can be used to create warmth that you can feel on your feet!
Floor heat systems can also be used with some vinyl flooring products, but they are more efficient when they are used with porcelain tile flooring.
Another way floors can be comfortable or uncomfortable is the density of the materials used. Vinyl floors are made of a softer material than porcelain tiles. This makes vinyl feel a little softer and more cushioning underfoot. While the difference between the softness of these materials isn’t huge (vinyl is still pretty rigid underfoot) it can be a noticeable difference for some people.
Porcelain tile can be very comfortable, especially when it is used in conjunction with a floor heat system. But, the lower density, more insulating properties of vinyl flooring often makes it a more comfortable choice when a floor heat system is not going to be used.
What flooring is the easiest to maintain?
Porcelain tile and vinyl flooring both have a lightly textured, waterproof surface that is easy to clean. Neither of them requires special cleaners or techniques for everyday maintenance.
The potential weak points for both products are the joints between the tiles or planks.
Porcelain tiles are installed with spaces between tiles. These spaces are then filled with a cement (or cement-looking) product called grout. The grouts of yesteryear were prone to staining, so they required the application of a sealer twice a year to prevent discoloration of the grout. This maintenance is something few people know about, and even fewer actually do. Thankfully, today’s grouts are more stain-resistant, and many of them don’t require the application of a sealer.
Some vinyl planks or tiles can be installed with gaps between them that are then grouted with an acrylic grout product, to mimic the look of porcelain tile. An acrylic grout in a grouted vinyl floor will perform similarly to a stain-resistant grout in a porcelain tile floor.
More commonly, vinyl products are installed by simply placing the planks or tiles as tightly together as possible. Unfortunately, because vinyl shrinks when it is cold and expands in warmer temperatures, a tightly butted, grout-free, vinyl floor installation has the potential of developing “hairline” gaps between planks in colder weather. When this happens, small amounts of dirt can work their way into these gaps, This dirt can be difficult to remove.
So, overall, both porcelain tile and vinyl flooring are easy to maintain. The joints between planks/tiles can potentially be a little more difficult to keep clean than the planks/tiles themselves. A good quality, stain-resistant grout and/or a regular cleaning schedule will minimize the weaknesses of these systems, and keep your floor looking great for years to come.
What is the most durable flooring?
What makes a floor durable? When we think about how a floor is used, and what can cause it to fail, three main areas come to mind:
Wear resistance- a floor has to withstand the constant movement of people and pets on its surface.
Scratch resistance- a floor has to withstand the movement of hard objects, like furniture or pet claws across its surface.
Impact resistance- a floor has to withstand occasional objects being dropped on its surface.
Let’s take a look at how these flooring products perform in these categories.
Wear resistance: Porcelain tile is incredibly dense, which makes its wear resistance absolutely ridiculous! To my knowledge, there isn’t a flooring product with a higher wear resistance than porcelain tile. The wear resistance of porcelain tile could withstand hundreds of years of daily foot traffic!
Vinyl, on the other hand, is a much less dense product. But, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t wear-resistant. Vinyl is manufactured with a very tough wear-resistant layer on its surface, for this very reason. How long this wear layer will last depends on the quality of the flooring product and how much use the floor will see. As a rule of thumb, vinyl flooring will last between 10 and 25 years. So, if you use a high-quality vinyl product in your remodel, it will last until it is time to remodel again!
Scratch resistance: The density of porcelain tile makes it incredibly scratch-resistant as well. There aren’t many things that will scratch porcelain tile.
When we compare vinyl to porcelain tile, its scratch resistance looks pitiful. But, if we compare it to another common flooring product- hardwood, it is really good. The wear layer on vinyl flooring is generally more durable than most finishes on a hardwood floor. Vinyl flooring offers good protection against pet claws and softer items that might scratch a floor, like a wooden chair leg. It will not offer very good protection against a harder material, like metal or glass, though.
Impact resistance: You are standing on your new floor, drinking a glass of water, when your glass slips! Smash!! Glass shards are everywhere!! You grab a broom and start to carefully clean everything up. Out of curiosity, you look closely at the area where the glass hit the floor. What do you suppose you will find?
Porcelain tile has a reputation for cracking easily, so most people would expect to find a cracked tile in the situation I just described. The truth is, when porcelain tile is installed properly, set in a full bed of mortar over a solid, properly prepared substrate, it is a lot more crack-resistant than most of us realize. Likely, you wouldn’t have a cracked tile after you dropped a glass of water on your new floor. There is a good chance that you would have a chipped tile, though. Even though porcelain is often more impact-resistant than many people expect, it is still not very good in that regard, it tends to crack and chip more easily than most other flooring products.
What if we drop that same glass on a vinyl floor? If you’re lucky, the glass might not break when it is dropped on a vinyl floor! But, that’s a pretty big ask of a glass. Likely, you would still have to clean up the glass shards. But, what would the floor look like? Well, you would likely have a dent in the floor where the glass impacted, but that would be about it! You might have a small, but irritating, dent but you certainly wouldn’t have a crack in the floor. Vinyl flooring is very impact-resistant.
What flooring is the easiest to install?
Depending on the product, vinyl flooring can be installed in a couple of different ways, with varying degrees of difficulty. Porcelain, on the other hand, doesn’t have a lot of variation in installation methods.
Let’s look at porcelain tile first. To be honest, porcelain tile is one of the most difficult flooring materials to install. The tile itself is heavy, and it requires big, heavy bags of mortar to be moved, mixed, and troweled for the installation of the tile. Porcelain is very dense, and it requires special tools to cut. On top of all of that, it requires a fair bit of knowledge to install properly.
Many people have had bad experiences with tile floors. Earlier in this article, I pointed out a few areas where porcelain tile had a bad reputation. To be honest, most of the common issues people have with porcelain tile are the results of an improper installation. Avoiding these issues requires quite a bit of knowledge and skill on the part of the installer. Porcelain tile can be a DIY project, but it should be considered an advanced project. Porcelain tile doesn’t really qualify as an easy installation.
“Click type” floating vinyl floors, on the other hand, are very easy to install! The planks literally just click together! There is no glue to mess with, the flooring is fairly light and easy to handle, and the planks (or tiles) can be cut with a knife. What’s not to love?
Well, unfortunately, the easily installed, click-type floating floors are designed to do just that- float. These floors can come apart if they are trapped by heavy appliances, cabinets, or permanently fastened fixtures, like a toilet, vanity, or refrigerator. This means that they aren’t a good choice for bathroom applications. Glue-down vinyl is the product to use in a bathroom (or kitchen).
Glue-down vinyl is a bit more difficult to install than click-type vinyl flooring. With glue-down vinyl, the installer needs to cut and install plywood underlayment then glue down the vinyl tiles, or planks on top of that. The products used are still pretty lightweight, at least compared to porcelain tile. The tools required are less specialized than the tools for tile, but you will still need a saw and a stapler to cut and fasten the plywood underlayment. The vinyl can still be cut with a knife, but you will need a trowel for the adhesive.
So, overall, click-type vinyl flooring is incredibly easy to install, glue-down vinyl has a medium installation difficulty, and porcelain tile is difficult to install.
What is the least expensive flooring?
Like most other home improvement projects, the cost of a flooring project is largely driven by labor costs. Material costs are a much smaller percentage of the overall project cost than many of us expect.
When we compare porcelain tile and vinyl flooring, we will find that the cost of the materials is pretty comparable. The difference in cost lies primarily in labor costs. Click-type vinyl will be the least expensive option, due to its ease of installation. Glue-down vinyl will cost a little more than click-type vinyl flooring.
Porcelain, on the other hand, is very time-consuming, so it will be in a league of its own. Porcelain tile is one of the most expensive flooring products to install, due to the time and skill of the labor required for a high-quality installation.
The caveat- while porcelain tile may be a lot more costly per square foot than vinyl, in smaller rooms, like bathrooms, the price difference can be negligible in the grand scheme of the project. For example, a vinyl tile floor in a small bathroom may cost $1500, while a porcelain tile floor may cost $3000. Technically, the porcelain tile is twice as expensive as vinyl flooring, but it is still only a $1500 difference in project cost. That’s not a lot in the grand scheme of a $50,000 remodeling project.
What is the best type of flooring for a bathroom?
Wow, that was a lot of information! Hopefully, it was helpful! But, did I ever answer the real question- Which is better for a bathroom floor: porcelain tile or vinyl?
The truth is, neither one is objectively better. They are very different products, with very different strengths and weaknesses. Which one is better for you will depend on what features are most important to you.
If wear resistance and the option for an efficient floor heat system are important to you, porcelain tile will likely be the better choice for your project.
On the other hand, if impact resistance and ease of installation are more important, vinyl will likely be the better choice for you.
Overall, ceramic/porcelain tile and vinyl plank/tile are great products to use for a bathroom floor. You can’t really go wrong with either one!
