Porcelain paving has gained popularity in recent years as a versatile and attractive option for outdoor spaces. This durable material offers a sleek, modern look that can elevate the aesthetics of any garden, patio, or driveway. However, like any landscaping choice, porcelain paving comes with its own set of advantages and drawbacks. In this article, we’ll explore the pros and cons of porcelain paving to help you determine if it’s the right choice for your outdoor project.

Pros of Porcelain Paving

Hard-wearing

The most important feature of porcelain is its durability, all our Porcelain paving products are made with specially selected high quality clays and additives – kiln fired to temperatures of up to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in a hard, durable, wear-resistant material with exceptionally low water absorption, make it suitable for all domestic settings and even high traffic commercial areas.

Slip resistant

All our porcelain paving comes with a R11 or above slip rating and an extremely flat but textured surface, making the ideal product for all domestic and commercial installations, and also meets current British standards for paving materials.

Low porosity 

One of the key benefits of porcelain is its low porosity. Porcelain pavers are far less absorbent than their natural stone counterparts, making them significantly more resistant to moisture damage, staining, penetration by most liquids, oils, grease and chemicals, but makes them exceptionally moss & mould resistant. 

Aesthetically superior

Porcelain paver slabs offer an exceptional range of products styles and colours, making them a versatile product suited to many landscaping applications. The accuracy of the manufacturing process allows for clean straight edges and extremely tight tolerance when laying these products, allowing for a high end finish to be achieved easily without significantly increasing your installation costs. Our range of porcelain paving allows designers to create visually stimulating spaces, with products that work well with modern garden design trends and in harmony with the surroundings of their project.

Low maintenance

Due to the low porosity of Porcelain paving they are naturally low maintenance, compared to their natural stone counterparts. Staining from the tannins in leaves & petals, berries and everyday grime are not able to penetrate the surface of the Porcelain paving making it extremely easy to remove with a jet wash and without the need for any harsh chemicals. Porcelain paving also allows for extremely tight point gaps which further helps reduce maintenance, due to this being the most porous part of the patio.

Freeze/thaw resistant

Due to the extremely low water absorption of porcelain paving slabs they are not susceptible to freeze / thaw cracking, and are more than capable of taking the lowest temperature seen within the UK.

Cons of Porcelain Paving

More Expensive

Traditional porcelain paving slabs would have been at a higher cost compared to their natural stone equivalents, but over recent years these price differences have become very little and in some cases, porcelain paving is cheaper. One thing you must bare in mind is the increased installation cost of porcelain paving compared to natural stone paving. More care needs to be taken when installing porcelain as they are more accurately manufactured and to continue this accuracy through installation it an be a little more time consuming. Additional time will also be needed when cutting compared to natural stone as they are a harder product that is more prone to chipping unless care is taken.  

More difficult to cut 

Porcelain paving slabs can be more difficult to cut than the Natural Paving slabs and less experienced landscape contractors may be reluctant to work with these materials, which can limit the list of suitable installers. You also would need to buy slightly more paving slabs than the area you are covering to allow for wastage during the cutting process, reducing the amount of cuts during design can greatly help with this and help reduce the cost of the project.

Different appearance

Porcelain paving offer quite a different aesthetic to the traditional natural stone equivalents, possible more suited to modern / contemporary garden designs. Porcelain has far less variation between the slabs compared to natural stone, which are all unique, this can create a more harmonious look to the over feel of the paved are, which does not suit all garden types.  In more recent time Higher quality European Manufactured Porcelain products from Italian, Poland and Bulgaria have come onto the market that mimic the appearance of natural stone extremely closely which gives the product a great deal more design scope. Please see our full range of Italian and Polish porcelain products on the link below:

EUROPEAN PORCELAIN PAVING RANGE

In Conclusion 

There are very few reasons not to buy porcelain paving, its hard-wearing, non-porous low maintenance and these days extremely affordable product, its purely an aesthetic choice where you like the straight lines and perfect finish of porcelain or if a more traditional finish found with hand cut natural stones would suit your property better. 

Need more help ?

If you are still unsure that porcelain paving is the correct choice for your project, please follow the link below to order 2 free samples from your full range of porcelain products or any other product you would like to compare. There is also lots more information on selection, installation and maintenance of porcelain paving on our Tech Guides section of this website.

ORDER PORCELAIN PAVING SAMPLES HERE