Home / Services / Patios & paving / Porcelain
Large-format 20mm porcelain, primed and bedded on a full mortar bed, with mitred cuts and joint lines you'd struggle to fault. Porcelain shows every shortcut, so the laying is the whole job.
What it is
The job itself is a patio job: dig out, sub-base, falls, bedding, cutting, jointing. What changes with porcelain is the tolerance. Every tile is the same size and dead flat, so the ground it sits on has to be built as true as the tile is.
That cuts both ways. Laid properly it is the most consistent surface you can put in a garden. Laid in a hurry it is the least forgiving.
In plain English
Outdoor porcelain is a fired ceramic tile, made to a set size and finish rather than split off a quarried block like natural stone. It barely absorbs any water, which is why it doesn't stain or fade and shrugs off frost, and why it has to be primed on the back to bond to a mortar bed at all.
Materials
Porcelain is sold on the tile, but half of what you're paying for is the bed it sits on and the primer that sticks it there. Here's the spec we work to on every porcelain patio.
Half of that list is what you never see. Ask what's going under yours before you compare prices.
Get a written quote →Why people choose it
Porcelain is the right call for a lot of gardens, and the wrong one for some. Both sides, before you commit.
What it's good at
Anthracite grey stays anthracite grey. Twenty years on it looks like the day it went down.
No sealing, no re-sealing, no moss taking hold in a porous surface. A brush and an occasional wash is the whole job.
Big, flat, near-identical tiles with crisp edges suit a modern extension, grey render or anthracite windows better than any natural stone can.
The honest downsides
Porcelain doesn't hold warmth the way stone does. Barefoot on a spring morning it feels cool. If that matters to you, sandstone is the warmer surface.
Porcelain won't flex. Where a natural stone patio might ride a little ground movement, porcelain shows it as a cracked tile or a lifted joint. The base has to be right, which is where the labour goes.
On a uniform tile there's nowhere to hide a chipped edge or a wandering joint line. Porcelain rewards a careful cutter and punishes a rushed one, so who lays it matters more than with riven stone.
Real jobs
These are close-ups from real Leeds jobs, at the details where you can see who laid it.
Our own photos, from our own jobs. If we show it, we built it.
The side of the house gets the same care as the patio
Laid wet to the sleeper-edged beds
Measured on site and itemised line by line.
Get a written quoteor see more paving in the projects
The old one comes up first
Porcelain is won or lost before the tile goes down. Here's the order we work in, and what each stage is for.
Strip out what's there, dig to firm ground and compact a Type 1 sub-base to suit the ground.
Set to a fall of roughly 1 in 80 running away from the house, and kept low enough to stay below your damp course and level under the door thresholds.
Slurry primer on the back of every tile, then bedded on a full wet mortar bed, buttered and tapped down. Never five dabs on the corners.
Cut wet on a diamond blade. External corners mitred so a step reads as one solid piece rather than a trim stuck on, and thresholds cut flush and level.
Consistent joints filled to suit the range, then the whole patio cleaned off before anything cures on the face. Porcelain shows a sloppy clean-up for good.
Guaranteed for 10 years
The 10-year workmanship guarantee is on everything under the tile: the compacted sub-base, the full wet mortar bed, the slurry primer on the back of every tile, and the falls that take water away. Porcelain won't flex, so that build-up is the whole job. The tiles carry their manufacturer's warranty on top of ours.
Every stage of that happens before you ever see a tile. Tell us the size of the patio and we'll cost it out.
Get a written quote →Common questions
Alternatives
If you've read this far and something still doesn't sit right, it might be the material rather than us. These are the three we'd most often point a porcelain enquiry towards.
Better when: you want a natural riven surface that's warmer underfoot and mellows with age, and a period house where uniform tiles would look bought-in.
The trade-off: colour varies flag to flag, and it's porous, so it wants sealing if you care about barbecue grease and red wine.
See Indian sandstone →Better when: the house is old stone and you want a patio that looks like it has been there as long as the walls have.
The trade-off: it only comes in as old buildings come down, so it takes longer to source, and the joints want repointing in time.
See Reclaimed Yorkshire stone →Better when: the ground drops away, or a patio would sit too high against the house. A raised deck gets you a level surface for far less groundwork.
The trade-off: it's a frame job rather than a paving job, and the frame needs ventilation under it to last.
See Composite decking →Still weighing them up? Compare all three stones on the patios hub →
Send a photo of the garden and rough measurements and we'll come and measure up. You'll get a written, itemised quote with the base, the priming and the cutting all spelled out, so you can see what you're paying for.
Or call 07743 342155