Our SnapStone Kitchen Tile has Finally Arrived

After ripping up our linoleum kitchen floor a couple weeks ago, we ordered tile to replace the old, worn, and frankly gross, linoleum that used to lay on our kitchen floor.  That kitchen had seen a lot from our previous owners, and has been in various stages of renovation since we bought the house in 2011.  Though I am not sure exactly what the extent of all the damage has come from, I do know that it has seen at least one serious water leak from the dishwasher, and one fire from the stove that sparked when you turned it on.  I also know that the kitchen floor has been redone at least two times, since there were a total of three layers of linoleum on the floor, totaling over an inch of particleboard, plywood, and linoleum, not including the three-quarter inch subfloor.

Floating Tile Systems are a Time Saver

We opted for the eighteen inch tiles in Sierra,
which is equivalent to Flagstaff with ZipTile
or Tuscon with Avaire Floors.

The other day, our tile finally arrived a week ahead of the original delivery date, to our delight.  We had planned on laying the kitchen tile ourselves, but since the arrival of our first child in January, thought tiling an entire room ourselves, with no prior tiling experience, would be too difficult while also caring for our son.  That was, at least, until we found an all-in-one tile that removed the steps of prepping the floor, laying the mortar, and waiting in between steps.  The tile, known as a floating tile system, is called SnapStone and is exclusive to Lowes and Menards, although as I later found out is identical to another floating tile system called ZipTile which is exclusive to Amazon.com

SnapStone Floating Tile Looks Like an Awesome Product

SnapStone is porcelain tile attached to a plastic frame that contains tabs on all sides to allow each tile to interlock with the next, automatically creating perfect, aligned spacing without the need for mortar.  To keep from sliding, the plastic frame has a rubber bottom that does quite a good job of gripping the subfloor.  This seemed like the best of both world for us, allowing us to save money by tiling ourselves while also making the job simple enough to do while also caring for an infant.  During one of our weekly trips to Lowes, we discovered SnapStone in the flooring department, and while we were interested in the possibility of simplifying the tiling of our kitchen floor, we were also skeptical that this tile would actually work as promised.  After searching the internet for user reviews, however, we thought it looked good enough that we ordered our SnapStone tiles, along with the SnapStone flexible grout, and waited for our tile to arrive.

SnapStone is ZipTile is Avaire

While we were waiting, my wife and I thought it'd be prudent to look around for similar floating tile systems to make sure the SnapStone was the right way to go. (Yes, I realize this step is usually performed before you order the tile, but we already had to wait a couple weeks for our order, and we could always return the tile if we found something better.) Well as it turns out, we did find another floating tile system on Amazon called ZipTile, and it seemed pretty similar to SnapStone, both in design and style.  Actually, the colors of the ZipTile tiles were so similar to those of SnapStone that I realized one was an obvious copy of the other, or these were actually made by the same company.  After a little digging (and by digging I mean scrolling to the bottom of both companies' websites), I found both floating tile systems were actually made by CoMc, LLC, based in Omaha, Nebraska.  If you compare the SnapStone tile color page to the ZipTile tile color page, you will see that the color names may have been changed, but the colors are exactly the same.  In fact, if you save any of the images on either of those pages, you will find the file names are even the same.

The Sierra color we purchased through SnapStone is
identical to the colors Flagstaff and Tuscon from ZipTile
and Avaire Floors.

UPDATE: In the process of saving the file names to show the color comparison, I noticed the file names, while the same, refer to color names that doesn't exist for either product.  Searching those colors brought me to AvaireFloors.com, a third subsidiary of CoMc, LLC selling the same flooring system.  This one seems targeted towards commercial installation and Canada, and while I am not sure, it seems that CoMc, LLC keeps making new companies to sell the same product so that they can appear more exclusive to the retailer.  

We Will be Installing our SnapStone Kitchen Tile in the Next Couple Days

The SnapStone / ZipTile / Avaire tile seems nice, and avoiding the mess and hassle of laying mortar or thinset, placing the tiles, waiting for everything to dry, then grouting should save a lot of time.  There is also a special grout that you have to use with the floating tiles that is supposedly more flexible than conventional grout, since the tiles are not actually adhered to the floor (though it is very hard to slide even one on the floor due to the rubber backing).  It looks pretty easy to use based on the installation videos online, but I am always wary of videos companies put together to make their product look easy to use.  Interestingly, the only difference I have found so far between SnapStone, ZipTile, and Avaire are the available grout colors.  There are a few that are in all three, but each seems to have at least one color you can't get with another one of the floating tile systems.

We are very optimistic that we can pull off this project, especially after seeing other reviews online.  While we were waiting for our tile and grout to arrive, we also went ahead and purchased the ZipTile Installation Tool Kit, which comes with some specialty tools to make snapping the tiles together easier.  From what we have read, this will save us quite a bit of time snapping the tiles together, especially along the edges.  We plan on installing the tile within the next few days, so look back for an update on how the installation went, complete with pictures.