Why does marble flooring feel cold to touch?

Answer 1

Marble floors may feel cold, but they are actually the same temperature as the air around them. They FEEL colder because stone is more conducive to temperature than air. What that means is that skin in contact with air dissipates heat into the air more slowly than skin in contact with marble. The stone is absorbs the heat at a much greater rate than the air, making your skin feel cold, thus the stone feeling cold to the touch.

Answer 2

Marble conducts heat well. Certainly better than Formica or other plastic or wood surfaces. Also, the density of marble allows it to absorb a lot of heat relative to less dense materials. The combination of these two factors makes marble (and other stone and thick metal surfaces) feel cold to the touch. The marble is actually at room temperature, but it can draw heat away from your hand (which is warmer than room temperature) much quicker than touching wood or plastic. Faster heat transfer means your skin temperature drops closer to room temperature and you feel cold.

Answer 3

In the short answer the terms are heat sink & Insulative value.

Densely packed materials, like stone, glass & steel always feel cooler than paper, textiles or wood in the same conditions.

Densely packed materials absorb and store heat, if they are at or cooler than your touch, they will seek to absorb that heat difference and store it, and since they are cooler & denser they just keep sucking the heat away & swapping it out for their abundantly and densely stored coolness.

Wood on the other hand is much less dense, is mostly air and cellulose, both of which are lighter than water so a log floats & rocks (except pumice). Insulative value almost all insulation works on a very simple premise, still air doesn't conduct much heat. So since wood is mostly wood it returns the heat, because its an insulator & tile, which is made of sand & ground stone, draws heat out of your hand because its a heat sink...