From the Blog · Tile Installation
How do you choose new tile for a shower?
Choose new tile for a shower in this order: material, floor grip, size, and only then colour. For the walls, glazed porcelain or ceramic is the safe buy — it does not drink water, it wipes clean, and it survives Colorado Springs hard water. For the floor, pick a mosaic or small-format tile with a matt, textured finish and plenty of grout joints: a wet shower floor is a grip problem before it is a style problem, and the slip rating to look for is a DCOF of 0.42 or higher. Get those two decisions right and almost any look you like can be built on top of them.
Walls: porcelain first, natural stone only with your eyes open
Porcelain is the workhorse of the modern shower: dense, low-absorption, and unbothered by daily soaking. Glazed ceramic runs a close second on walls. Natural stone — marble, travertine, slate — is beautiful and honest work, but it is porous: it needs sealing before grouting and re-sealing as it wears, and pale marble can stain from iron in the water and rust from a cheap shampoo bottle left standing. In Colorado Springs, where the water is hard enough to crust a kettle, stone in a shower is a maintenance commitment, not a fit-and-forget surface. Choose it because you love it, not because a showroom photo loved it.
The floor is a grip decision
Big polished tiles on a shower floor are a skating rink with better PR. The floor needs texture and joints: mosaic sheets, pebbles, or small hexagons give your feet edges to hold and let the floor follow the falls to the drain without ugly cuts. Check the slip rating — a Dynamic Coefficient of Friction (DCOF) of 0.42 or above is the recognised line for wet interior floors. Pebble floors earn their keep here, which is why they are the floor I set most often — but they must be set flat and grouted full, or they hold water in the dips.
Size, joints and the truth about grout
Large-format wall tile means fewer grout lines to scrub and a calmer room, but it demands a flat wall — big tiles telegraph every bump as lippage. Rustic or handmade-look tile needs a wider joint, around 3/16 inch, to swallow its natural wobble; rectified porcelain can run a tight 1/16 inch. And remember the corners: every change of plane gets silicone, not grout, because corners move. When you choose new tile, choose the grout with it — epoxy or high-performance grout on the floor, colour picked against a dried sample, never off the bag.
Colorado specifics
Three local facts shape the choice. Hard water leaves scale on dark, glossy tile fastest — mid-tone matt finishes hide a week of it, black polished tile shows a day of it. Freeze-thaw matters if the shower sits on an exterior wall or over an unheated crawlspace: porcelain shrugs it off, porous stone and cheap ceramic do not. And altitude sun through a bathroom window fades some glazed patterns over years — another point for through-body porcelain colour on a sunlit wall.
The short version
New tile for a shower: porcelain or glazed ceramic on the walls, small and grippy on the floor with a DCOF of 0.42 or better, joints sized to the tile, silicone in the corners, and a finish your water can live with. Want a second pair of eyes before you order? Call The British Remodeler in Colorado Springs at 719-521-8312 — free estimates, and November still has room for smaller tile jobs while larger bathroom remodels book into December. Serving Colorado Springs, Monument, Manitou Springs, Fountain and the wider Front Range.