Choosing the right product
How to choose cladding for walls and floors
The destination for use of the room to be clad may help in identifying mechanical, chemical or thermal stress that the surfaces will have to endure. The higher these types of stresses, the greater performance of the product chosen will have to be.
Ceramic surfaces destined for the home and for the bathroom especially are not normally subject to great mechanical stress and higt wear, but rather to contact with chemical products that are particularly aggressive for the cleaning of the room. They must therefore have very high resistance to contact with solvents and detergents used for maintaining the high levels of hygiene required.
Surfaces destined for kitchens generally speaking may be considered the most subject to stress, even in terms of mechanical stress: constant cleaning, often vigorous, possibility of dropping objects, greater wear and tear especially in correspondence to areas more in use.
Products with particularly high mechanical and chemical surface resistance are therefore required.
A ceramic surface destined to a commercial area or public spaces in general must have non-slip characteristics for the safety of the users, be resistant to wear and tear and breakage (in the case of strong static and dynamic stress), and be practical and easy to clean.
Full body porcelain stoneware is the best in ceramic technology in terms of technical performance qualities such as: resistance to wear, to mechanical stress, to stains, to attacks from chemical agents (acids and bases), and frost, meeting the most modern design demands. In the architectural field, full body porcelain stoneware, with respect to other natural materials such as marble and stone, has greater mechanical characteristics regardless of its inferior thickness. Thanks to its extreme compactness and homogeneity, it has no defects and is particularly resistant, making it suitable for any use, areas with high and low traffic of users, for the home, public spaces, indoors and outdoors.
The choice of the full body porcelain stoneware product, which is more suitable for a number of different destinations for use, therefore essentially concerns the evaluation of the surface finish (natural, rustic or honed), the format and its thickness.
For outdoors, full body porcelain stoneware is the ideal solution thanks to its very low water absorption rate, giving it the definition of a frost-proof material. The availability of large format slabs makes it the ideal product also for the cladding of large vertical surfaces, with mechanical anchorage systems onto substructures of different types, or anchored to the wall, such as curtain walls.
Some types of glazed ceramic materials may also be used outdoors, partially or totally exposed to atmospheric agents. Care must be taken in always choosing products with very low water absorption values that are consequently resistant to frost and sudden temperature changes.
