porcelain vs ceramic

Porcelain Vs. Ceramic Tiles: What’s The Better Option?

January 8, 2021
Sol Farahmand

No matter if you’re looking for the best tiles for your home or for a commercial area, you may be wondering about which one is best: porcelain vs ceramic tiles. The truth is that these tiles are very different from one another. However, today, we decided to only focus on the performance.

When you are trying to decide which are the best tiles to use, you need to consider different factors.

 

#1: Water Absorption:

One of the first factors that you need to consider when looking to decide between porcelain vs ceramic tiles is water absorption.

Simply put, porcelain tiles are a lot more dense. So, this makes them more water-resistant than ceramic tiles.

 

#2: Glazed And Non-Glazed Tiles:

When you’re comparing porcelain vs ceramic tiles, you need to keep in mind if they are glazed or non-glazed tiles.

The reality is that a glazed ceramic tile has almost 0% water absorption and this is one of the reasons why you see these tiles on shower walls so frequently.

 

#3: Composition:

This is one of the main factors to consider when you’re trying to decide between porcelain and ceramic tiles since this makes the difference between where they can be installed.

The composition of ceramic tiles is a lot more simpler than porcelain tiles. Ceramic tiles are mainly made of silica and clay. On the other hand, porcelain tiles have more things inside. Besides still having clay and silica, they also have felt, feldspar, flint, and sometimes they may even have chips of recycled porcelain tiles. Other times, you may have quartz.

It’s also important to notice that porcelain tiles are also “cooked” at a much higher temperature. From all this, it is easy to conclude that porcelain tiles are more dense which means they’re also heavier.

On the other hand, ceramic tiles are a lot more softer. So, this means that you need to be very careful if you want to install them on the floor because depending on the type of load they’re going to be over those tiles, it could be a problem down the line. In the case of porcelain tiles, you can install them on walls and floors.

 

#4: Abrasion Resistance:

The last factor that you need to keep in mind when deciding between porcelain and ceramic tiles regards the abrasion resistance.

As we already mentioned above, ceramic tiles are a lot softer than porcelain tiles which make them more prone to abrasion. Even if they have a glaze on it, the glaze can have a lot more of wear and tear than a glaze on a porcelain tile.

The main difference between these two is that porcelain tiles are going to have a higher abrasion resistance than ceramic tiles. That can be a factor when it comes to scratches that might develop over time on the tile but also stuff like shoe scuff marks which can be a problem in commercial settings.

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