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Marble · Technical guide
When tile or slab edges sit at different heights, the floor catches underfoot and reflections break at every joint. How lippage is assessed, when diamond grinding can level it, and what can realistically be achieved.
Lippage is the height difference between adjacent tiles or slabs. It usually comes from the original installation, through uneven bedding, tile warp or the laying method, and sometimes from later movement. Even a small step can catch a heel or a broom, and it is often more visible than people expect.
On polished marble, lippage shows up as broken reflections. A line of light reflected across the floor steps and kinks at every joint instead of running straight through, and that is often noticed before the edges are felt underfoot.
The condition decides the method
Lippage is easiest to see in raking light, or by looking along the floor toward a window. Light catches on the high edge of each tile and the reflection breaks into separate panels.
Levelling the floor makes the surface continuous again, so the finish can be refined as a single plane rather than tile by tile.
Where levelling is appropriate, the high edges are ground down with diamond tooling until adjoining tiles sit in the same plane. The floor is then refined through progressively finer abrasives to remove the grinding scratch pattern and brought to the agreed finish.
The starting abrasive and the number of stages depend on how much height has to come off, the stone itself and the finish required. Edges and perimeters that a large machine cannot reach are worked separately so the whole floor matches.
Grinding produces slurry or fine dust. Work is planned around wet methods or extraction and protection of adjoining areas, but no stone grinding process is entirely free of mess.
On large open areas the eye reads the floor as one surface, so inconsistencies across a long run are easier to see and levelling matters more. Work is sequenced around access, adjoining finishes and, in commercial spaces, occupancy or trading hours.
Levelling often exposes the joints. Where grout or filler is failing, joint restoration is usually planned alongside it.
How much can be taken off depends on tile thickness and how the floor was laid. Thin tiles have a real limit, and on those floors the honest outcome may be a significant reduction in lippage rather than a perfectly flat surface.
Hollow or loose tiles have to be identified first. Grinding over a tile that is not properly bonded can crack it, so it may need re-fixing or replacing before levelling.
Where movement in the substrate caused the lippage, grinding corrects the surface but not the cause, and the problem can return.
40+ Years of Hands-On Stone Restoration Experience
Lippage removal is a judgement about how much stone a floor can afford to lose. The aim is not to grind as hard as possible; it is to bring the surface into one plane while keeping as much of the original stone as practical.
Tony looks at tile thickness, how the floor was laid and the finish required before deciding whether levelling is appropriate, and how far it should go.
From our work
Real marble floors where levelling was part of the work.
Realistic outcomes
Questions
It is a height difference between neighbouring tiles or slabs, so one edge sits proud of the next. It can catch feet and cleaning equipment, and on polished stone it breaks up reflections at every joint.
Often, yes. Levelling is done by grinding the installed floor. Whether lippage can be removed completely depends on how high the edges are and how thick the tiles are.
The floor is refined back to the agreed finish afterwards, so it should read as one continuous surface. Grinding can reveal joints, old fills or variation in the stone that were less visible before, and those are discussed at assessment.
It produces slurry or fine dust. Wet methods or extraction and masking of adjoining areas keep it controlled, but it is not mess-free, and the work is planned with that in mind.
Related
Assessment and restoration across the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Sydney. Photographs are often enough for a first view.
Describe the surface or send photographs, and you will get a straight answer about what it needs and what is realistic.
