About Our Porcelain Paving

September 05, 2019

Confused about our ranges of porcelain pavers? Looking for value for money? We take you through what you need to know about our modern paving collections.

Chiltern Garden Design chose Versilia Porcelain paving from our Luxury Italian range. Its subtle marbling and large format 1200x600 measurements add character to this extensive paved area. Built by J&S Scapes.

In a nutshell, our porcelain pavers are divided into five ranges - three Italian collections and Budget porcelain.

Italian porcelain pavers

Whether you’re looking at our Luxury, Premium or the Budget Italian outdoor pavers, rest assured that they are all identical in quality.

Luxury Italian paving range

Our Luxury Italian range offers the most choice in colour, size and texture. You’ll find sandblasted, fine-combed and wood-effect options. You'll also find paving in larger sizes, such as the 1200x600 slabs featured in the picture above. And you'll find the widest choice of colours, so you can choose a subtle variation that gives your patio design its own special character. Not to be missed in this range are our extra-large porcelain slabs for outsize designs.

Florence Grey pavers from our Premium Italian porcelain range makes a natural-looking foundation for this design by Emily's Gardens. Built by JR Landscaping Ltd.

Premium Italian Porcelain Pavers

Our Premium range contains some of our most popular pavers, with an emphasis on the natural stone character of limestone and slate. Find out more about why Premium Italian pavers are special.

Large Format Italian Porcelain Pavers

Our Large Format Porcelain Paving includes outdoor tiles measuring 800x800mm and the exceptionally striking 1200x1200mm. These large, square slab sizes, in their own dedicated selection of colours, are particularly suitable for modern design. Take a look at reasons to choose 800x800mm paving.

Landscape Artisan used Charcoal Indian Porcelain paving from our Budget range to create this imposing approach to a front door.

Budget Porcelain Paving Range

Our Budget porcelain paving, mostly manufactured in India, offers a wide choice of value-focused paving. Often favoured by designers, the range includes paving options that aren’t found in the Premium and Luxury ranges. Within a wide choice of popular colours, especially greys, you’ll find plank paving and setts. Used on their own or in combination with larger paving slabs, these offer the opportunity to create a patio that’s totally individual to you.

Italian Budget porcelain pavers

Also included in this range are Italian porcelain pavers. These are identical in manufacture to the Luxury and Premium Italian ranges, with full body colour. This Italian Budget porcelain paving has been deliberately developed, in collaboration with our Italian manufacturer, to cater to those on limited budgets who still want to enjoy the superior quality of Italian porcelain paving. The Budget Italian options may be limited, but the paving's natural look and popular colours mean there’s no compromise necessary for anyone whose focus is value for money.

Venetian Beige is one of our Budget Italian porcelain pavers, chosen for this patio by Essex Garden Designs.

If the Italian paving is all the same quality, why are the ranges priced differently?

We've worked hard to make porcelain paving available to every pocket. Our Italian pavers are all manufactured at the same industry-leading factory. They are all made of the same materials, using the same high-quality tile production methods. Limiting the range of colours and styles in our Premium and Budget collections results in fewer production costs and allows us to offer pavers to suit a broad range of budgets.

Value-for-money Indian porcelain range

Just like our Italian pavers, all our Indian value-range porcelain paving is fully vitrified and rectified. Colour and pattern, however, are applied to the surface, so if you opt for profiled edges on steps and coping, you'll find a slight variation in colour on the honed edges. Manufacturing methods mean that our Indian porcelain weighs slightly less than the Italian, This can be advantage where lighter slabs are preferred. It also has a porosity of less than 0.05%, more than the water absorption rate of Italian porcelain, but still very much at the quality end of the market. It’s not unusual to find water absorption rates of 0.5% in cheap porcelain pavers.

Rectified slabs - the sign of quality

As well as porosity, rectification is a sign of high-quality porcelain pavers. This is when the tile is trimmed in the factory to the exact measurements. This stage is omitted in cheap porcelain pavers, meaning that you don’t get to enjoy the crisp, precise lines that are so vital to modern patio design. All our porcelain pavers are fully rectified.

Porcelain steps, here in Urban Grey, laid by Urban Landscape Design, are a low-maintenance option with a crisp, modern appearance.

Steps and coping for a complete design solution

No one else has the range we have, because no one has a comparable off-the-shelf range of garden steps and coping to match the paving. What we offer is completely unique. Outdoor steps and coping stones are available to match each one of our porcelain paving options. This means that you don't have to spend time looking around, and you can put everything on the same order. Time saved. See what porcelain steps can do for your garden.

Guaranteed quality

Whichever range your paver comes from, you can be confident in the quality. All of our porcelain paving comes with a 10-year guarantee. So, you can rest assured that your outlay will give you a patio to be proud of for many years to come. Take a look at more inspirational images on our porcelain paving pages. Post updated: October 2024