What the 20 mm paver depth is doing
Almost all of this range is 20 mm, which appears on some listings as 0.79 inch. That depth is not there for wear: a thinner porcelain is already harder than anything that will be dropped on it.
It is there for bending. A paver on pedestals is supported at its corners and has to span the gap between them under load, and a paver bedded in sand has to survive being walked on before the bed has fully settled. Depth is what it resists both with.
The coping comes with it
Pool coping sits alongside the pavers here instead of on a separate page, and that is deliberate: a coping and the deck behind it are one decision. The coping caps the pool edge, the paver runs away from it, and the two have to arrive in the same face.
Pool and spa paving is the page for coping profiles and how a pool edge is put together, whatever the material.
Why a paver is never polished
Matte carries this range almost without exception, with a small natural group and a handful of pieces whose finish field reads R11. There is no polished porcelain paver here and there would be no use for one.
An exterior floor is a surface that gets wet without warning, and it is also one that weather works on continuously. A matte face gives nothing back to a reflection and shows nothing of what the weather leaves behind. Where a project needs a documented slip class, that figure belongs to the manufacturer.
The stones a paver print copies
Limestone look leads, then travertine, slate, quartz and bluestone, with wood, stone and marble looks behind them. That list is worth reading closely because it is not the same list an interior porcelain carries.
These are the stones that were used outdoors before porcelain existed: limestone and travertine around Mediterranean pools, slate and bluestone on northern terraces. A paver print aims at the stone that was already doing the job.
Bluestone, and why it is here
Bluestone look is a group of its own on this page and it appears nowhere near as often indoors. Bluestone is a North American sandstone, blue-gray and fine grained, and it has paved terraces and sidewalks in the northeast for a century and a half.
Two things make it a natural print. It is a regional stone with a strong local identity, and the real thing is heavy, absorbent and increasingly expensive to quarry, which is exactly the gap a 20 mm porcelain fills.
The joint on a paved surface
A paver joint is wider than a tile joint and it is doing a different job. On a bonded floor the joint is a line between two pieces; on a paved surface it is where water leaves, where the base moves, and where a piece can be lifted from later.
That is why a paver range is sold with a pattern mix and why the sizes are large. Fewer pieces means fewer joints to lose water through, and a wider joint means the surface can take a season of ground movement without anything cracking. It is also the reason a paver can be taken up and put back, which a bonded tile cannot.
Large formats and the odd one
The size list here starts with 24x24, then runs to 24x48, 13x24 and 12x24, with a 12x48 plank group and some larger squares.
The 13x24 is the giveaway on where these are made: it is a metric 33 by 60 centimetre paver written in inches. A pattern mix is also listed, which is several sizes supplied together to be laid as a repeating block.
Where a porcelain paver belongs
A terrace, a patio, a pool surround, a roof deck on pedestals, a path. It goes everywhere a stone paver goes and it raises fewer questions than a stone one does, because vitrification leaves the body with almost nothing for water to enter, and frost has nothing to act on.
One more thing a paver does that a bonded floor cannot: it can be lifted. A terrace on pedestals gives access to whatever runs underneath it, and a sand set paver can be taken up and reset if a base settles unevenly. For the same body in interior formats, outdoor porcelain tile holds the range across both, and travertine pavers is the quarried alternative.
