Marble "Made in China"

10 years ago

I have tile installers installing a wood look tile on the floor of my master bath at this time and soon they will be installing marble 3 x 6" tile in my shower. I noticed both tiles are made in China. I had no idea marble tiles were manufactured in China. Any thoughts on this? If the quality isn't up to par, I have time to do something about the shower tile before it's installed. Thank you.

Featured Answer

piscesgirl

10 years ago

We used a mix of tile for our master bath.
- White italian calacatta tile on floor
- China white threshold & shower sills from Lowes
- "Calacatta" mosiac from god knows where, for niche & floor

What I can tell you from our research & experience with white marble from china is it tends to be softer and more fragile, and the quality control is poor. This is why some contractors don't like working with it or refuse to work with it.

We had to have our sills cut at by a marble fabricator and although the agreed they wouldn't guarantee they wouldn't break. We got lucky and they didn't. But looking at the extra cut pieces I can tell you the rough ends crumble very easily.

So you should factor in buying a lot more extra tiles when using marble from China.

Also agree with what Bill said in the attached forum about the iron deposits and mosaic backing. We ordered "calacatta" mosaic for our shower niche and floor. Looking back at it, I am not sure that the product was Italian calacatta but probably a mix....some Italian calacatta mixed in with cheaper tiles from god knows where. I can tell you there were tiles with iron spots that looked like rust. The mosaic was supposed to be polished and there were pieces where they were unpolished. Thankfully it was a large mosaic (2"x4" pieces) because our poor contractor had to cut the bad pieces out and lay in pieces that were ok. Thankfully we ordered enough extra and we have a contractor with a lot of patience. :-)

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Comments (6)

kudzu9
10 years ago
Ask the installers what they think. Just because something is made in China doesn't mean the quality is poor. In fact, since the marble is a natural stone, rather than something that is manufactured from scratch, I would think all you would need to worry about is if the marble tiles are uniform, flat, and consistently polished. The Chinese have an ancient civilization that has been building with stone for a very long time.
sowngrow (8a)
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for your input kudzu9. The installers are subs hired by the general contractor with a long history with the g.c. I've read on some tile suppliers sites that they state they do not sell marble from China so I was wondering if anyone knows of a quality issue in particular.
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Gracie
10 years ago
I found this thread. Bill Vincent was the go-to tile expert here until he moved to the John Bridges forum. You might check with them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chinese marble
sowngrow (8a)
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you may_flowers. I appreciate you finding more information for me, on this. I hadn't found that thread when I searched. :)
PRO
Smooth Surface Tile & Stone
7 years ago
Very good comments. I've never worked with marble from China that wasn't problematic in MANY areas. I now tell owner to OK every single piece before I install it because it's so bad. I don't even sell it. I go to professional distributors. But lots of people buy it themselves.