Mosaic tiles are extremely durable as well as offering almost limitless design and colour options. Small mosaic tiles look fantastic, are easy to maintain and are gentle on your skin and swimmers due to their silky smoothness.
Ceramic mosaics are the more traditional pool tiles. Tilers like them because they bond really well to the shell of the pool and have stood the test of time. They are normally cheaper to buy and lay than glass mosaics. The down side is that there is a limited colour range to choose from.
Glass mosaics have certainly become more popular in the last 10 years. Pool buyers like them because there is a huge colour range to choose from and a variety of effects such as pearl, crystal and gold available. They shimmer and sparkle, bringing the pool to life.
A matter of size
Ceramic mosaic pool tiles range in size from 23mm square to 95mm x 45mm rectangles. Glass mosaic tiles range in size from 20mm to 48mm for crystal glass tiles. Normally, you wouldn’t use a tile bigger than 100mm to fully tile a pool as it is too difficult to make it look good due to the curved bottoms of sprayed concrete swimming pools. However, the most common sizes used for fully tiling pools are 20mm to 58mm.
Colour me beautiful
Blue remains one of the most popular colours. They are available in light to dark shades in both ceramic and glass. Many people use white tiles to achieve a light blue water colour. Other popular colours for full tiling are aqua, black and charcoal tiles.
Get in shape
One thing that remains unchanged is that pool tiles are different to their indoor cousins. Pool tiles need to be fired at a high temperature and have low water absorption so wall tiles are unsuitable for use in swimming pools. They also need to be supplied in a sheet format (i.e. the tiles are typically supplied on a mesh backing) so they are easy to lay.
When was the last time you had your pool or spa water diagnosed? Unbalanced chemicals can potentially damage equipment and cost you more in chemicals. It only takes a few minutes, so take a sample to your local Swimart.
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