You can typically walk carefully on new tile after 24 hours, but we recommend keeping heavy furniture off for the full mortar cure time — usually 3 days for thinset and longer for a mud-set installation — and waiting until grout has cured (about a week) before deep-cleaning or sealing.

Sanded grout is formulated for wider joints and resists shrink-cracking; unsanded is for tight joints, common with today's large-format rectified tile. Using the wrong one for the joint width leads to cracking or a grout line that never fully packs — it's a spec decision we make based on your tile size, not a preference call.

Large-format tile is far less forgiving of an uneven substrate than smaller tile — even minor variation shows up as lippage across a big, flat-looking surface. If your slab is out of the flatness tolerance the tile manufacturer requires, we level it with a self-leveling compound before setting, rather than trying to compensate with mortar thickness alone.

A small amount of variation can be normal, but widespread hollow spots usually mean incomplete mortar coverage under the tile during setting — voids that can lead to cracking under point load over time. If you're noticing it broadly across a newly installed floor, that's worth having inspected; it's a workmanship issue, not something inherent to tile.

It's a flexible joint (usually a soft caulk-filled gap) placed at intervals across a large tile field and around its perimeter so the tile can expand and contract slightly with temperature changes without cracking. It's an industry standard requirement, not an upsell — skipping it on a large room is one of the most common reasons tile fields crack years later.

Yes, on both material and labor. Angled patterns generate more cut waste — herringbone and diagonal layouts commonly run higher on material overage than a straight grid — and the cutting and alignment work takes meaningfully longer per square foot.

Standard cement grout works fine in most kitchens if it's properly sealed, but epoxy grout is worth considering around cooktops, islands, and high-spill zones because it resists staining and grease penetration without ongoing sealing maintenance — it costs more upfront but needs far less upkeep.

The setting process (thinset, layout, grout) is largely the same for both. The real difference is that porcelain's density makes it heavier and harder to cut, often requiring a wet saw with a diamond blade rather than a standard tile cutter, and large-format porcelain slabs specifically need leveling clip systems and sometimes two-person handling that standard ceramic tile doesn't.