You may think of exquisite Chinese pots, or bathroom tiles – smooth and slippery – when you think of porcelain. But porcelain is now a fantastic non-slip material for paving, in all kinds of finishes.
It’s made of earth and ground up stone, basically quartz, kaolin, feldspar and clay, fired in a hot oven then ground down at the edges for very consistent sizing.
In the process, you can have all sorts of effects: wood as well as stone. If you have a bi-fold door with wood or stone floors internally, you can obtain a beautiful flow effect between house and patio by using a matching porcelain
product outside.
The Corten Steel colour in porcelain is a fifth of the price of fashionably rusty Corten steel. Manufacturers are also producing wall cladding products and planters which go with the finish of porcelain paving.
On top of this, it’s hard-wearing, very consistent in texture and product, easy to use and beds down well as paving. It doesn’t weather and is colourfast, and you don’t have to seal or wash it. And it has high slip resistance, which can be a bugbear with worn-down stone.
So what are the drawbacks? Any landscaper that uses it will tell you that it is hard to work with. You need a lot of quality diamond blades to cut it with and the right equipment. You need to bond it with something called ‘primer slurry’. The timing is important -it needs to be sealed before the frost can get in. And another little thing – the Italian factories that make it all shut down in August and December, to maintain the equipment, so plan ahead. Colours may vary between batches, so put the batch number on your paving in order to get the right colour if you need to replace a tile. And most of all, at the moment, noone has had paving made out of this material for very long, so we don’t know how it performs long-term. The benefits and hard-wearing properties would seem to augur well for it. Go to your local builder’s merchant and have a look at the product to compare with other materials. Manufacturers include CED, London Stone and Global Stone.
NB These notes are from various presentations at the recent paving seminar ‘Paving the Way’ by the Association of Professional Landscapers. Additional information, both on manufacture and installation of porcelain paving, can be obtained from pavingexpert.com.
