Porcelain or ceramic tiles: Which should I choose for my home?

We explore the pros and cons of both materials

Replicating cement encaustic tile, these durable 20cm x 20cm 9mm thick porcelain tiles are suited to walls, floors, indoors, outdoors, bathrooms, kitchens, hallways, and outside porches. €84 per square metre, suppliers include adoretile.com

So, you’re putting up or putting down some tile. There’s a blizzard of excitement surrounding colour and scale, luxuriant new textures and look-a-likes products in quartz-rich faux marbles, leathers, precious metals and even fabrics. Having walked kilometres of showrooms, flipped hundreds of sample boards and sleuthed our way around Houzz and Instagram, we then hit the wall. Porcelain or ceramic? What’s the difference? Is ceramic simply cheaper and less desirable?

The truth is, both materials can deliver exquisite kitchens, bathrooms, halls and extensive rectified flooring solutions, but they do have their individual merits. Don’t panic. Once you have a tile rated to where it’s going, and properly installed, you’re not going to smash it out with your shampoo bottle while shrieking out some ABBA under the rainfall shower. All tile should be water and slip-resistant where needed, durable and suited to the situation and substrate (wall or floor material and treatments) where it’s being installed. After that, the choice is yours.