Ceramic Tile Dye Lot

What is a dye lot.

Ceramic tile dye lot.

Dye lot refers to the slight color difference from production to production for the same style of tile. Actually it isn t dye in the strict sense it relates to batch lot production numbers most often based on demand and the materials and substances the manufacturer has available in a production lot. Different batches of tile will have different numbers. If you have ceramic floor tiles in your home the choice of color may really date the floor.

A tile s caliber refers to its facial dimension size and is measured with a tool called a caliper often the terms are confused. A dye lot refers to all of the material dyed in a particular batch. I brought home a load of the roman stone italian color body porcelain floor tiles that lowe s sells there were three different dye lots and when you laid out tiles from each lot there was a significant difference in the base color. The color difference naturally occurs when the tile passes through the kiln and the kiln has a slightly different temperature in one section compared to another.

Batch to batch think of the variation you might notice between two cookie batches due to how hot the oven is for example. Popular floor tile colors change every five to 10 years which means. In this phrase the word lot is a designation of a fixed quantity and distinguishes itself from other lots or batches of material that were dyed or colored in other lots or batches. Manufacturing quality controls are created to sustain consistent factory conditions so that each run or batch looks the same.

Consequently you ll need to check your boxes of tile to make sure that the numbers are all identical. Batches can be different in both size and color from run to run. A dye lot is more or less a production run most dye lots are a code with numbers and letters from the manufacturer that identify certain batches of tile. When purchasing tile it is important not to mix dye lots as you may end up with miss matching tile that varies in shade size color and even texture.

How to color ceramic floor tiles. It happens because the tile production process takes natural clay elements bakes them at very high heat and depending on the materials and conditions may generate slight changes from batch to batch and dye lot to dye lot. Ragno carefully selects its tile and indicates on every box the particular shade dye lot and caliber to offer customers consistency throughout an installation. I tile every day of my life and in your case you might wish to choose something acceptable in a more generic open stock number.