Glazed porcelain stoneware refers to vitrified ceramic surfaces (water absorption less than 0.5%) with a neutral-coloured internal composition: the subsequent application of a surface layer of glaze allows for striking movement and graphic variety. Resistant to stains and chemical attacks and easy to clean, glazed porcelain stoneware floors can be used both indoors and outdoors (once the appropriate slip resistance coefficient has been verified).

Porcelain stoneware is a material with high technical performance that guarantees its application in various contexts: residential, commercial, public areas.

However, it is necessary to check the nature of the collection in relation to the intended use of the product because, for reasons of surface treatment, some collections can only be used for residential wall or floor coverings or where no particular anti-slip performance is required.

Porcelain stoneware can be used as a covering for bathrooms or kitchens, achieving attractive aesthetic solutions with the possibility of using the same product for both flooring and wall coverings.

Porcelain stoneware is recommended for use with underfloor heating as it retains very little heat, allowing you to optimise your heating consumption.

Porcelain stoneware tiles are frost-resistant, weatherproof and resistant to foot traffic. In particular, surfaces with a textured finish and grip guarantee the best anti-slip performance and are therefore best suited for outdoor installation.

Cavallino also offers C2O, a line of 20 mm tiles designed for outdoor use: the C2O collections combine the superior resistance of thick stoneware with the unmistakable style of Italian design.

The 20 mm thick C2O collections combine aesthetic quality with high technical performance. They are ideal for outdoor flooring in residential and commercial environments, such as gardens, walkways, terraces, pool edges, pavements, squares, beach resorts, car parks and much more.

They are resistant to frost and temperature changes, salt, stains and mould.

The non-slip materials allow you to enjoy outdoor spaces safely and maintain their colour and texture over time.

The products are easy to install either dry (on grass, gravel, raised installation) or with adhesive.

Porcelain stoneware tiles are frost-resistant, weatherproof and resistant to foot traffic. In particular, surfaces with a textured finish and grip guarantee the best anti-slip performance and are therefore best suited for outdoor installation.

Cavallino also offers C2O, a line of 20 mm tiles designed for outdoor use: the C2O collections combine the superior resistance of thick stoneware with the unmistakable style of Italian design.

The 20 mm thick C2O collections combine aesthetic quality with high technical performance. They are ideal for outdoor flooring in residential and commercial environments, such as gardens, walkways, terraces, pool edges, pavements, squares, beach resorts, car parks and much more.

They are resistant to frost and temperature changes, salt, stains and mould.

The non-slip materials allow you to enjoy outdoor spaces safely and maintain their colour and texture over time.

The products are easy to install either dry (on grass, gravel, raised installation) or with adhesive.

This is a misconception. Large-format tiles create fewer joints, giving the surface continuity and making the space appear larger. The aesthetic effect is enhanced if tone-on-tone joints are used.

Tile rectification

Rectification is a process carried out using cutting and milling machines that allows porcelain stoneware tiles to be produced with perfectly square edges. This process allows tiles to be laid with almost imperceptible joints down to a minimum of 2 mm, creating an elegant and highly aesthetic effect.

Tile shade

The shade is the colour tone that characterises a specific batch of tiles.

Since it is almost impossible to produce pieces with identical colour tones in industrial manufacturing, they are grouped according to colour homogeneity, i.e. shade, before packaging.

The tile tone is often indicated by a number and a letter and reproduced on the packaging with a stamp (Tone 50 A, Tone 50 B).

Tile calibre

The calibre refers to the manufacturing dimensions of the tiles.

For reasons related to manufacturing technologies, tiles coming out of the kiln may vary slightly in calibre. For this reason, when selecting tiles, they are grouped into batches of the same calibre, in accordance with the tolerances established by the standards.

Like the shade, the tile calibre is also indicated on the packaging as follows:

61 x 61 cm calibre D (W 608 mm x 608 mm) where 608 mm is the manufacturing calibre.

Or:
61 x 61 cm – calibre 01 – 0 – 1 ……

Choice of tiles

The choice class of tiles is another parameter that characterises the supply.

Only the first choice is regulated by standards. In this case, for example, with regard to appearance defects, no more than five defective tiles per hundred are allowed. The other choices (second, third, commercial, kiln yield, etc.) are of lower quality and may contain a greater number of defects.

During production, the surface of ceramic tiles can undergo various treatments and processes that can alter their roughness, glossiness and anti-slip properties.
There are four main surface finishes:
• Natural, the most widely used, where the tile undergoes no processing after firing. Regardless of their appearance, which can be more or less smooth and more or less matt, these surfaces are suitable for any type of environment

• Textured, the generally more pronounced surface roughness makes this type of surface more slip-resistant and therefore more suitable for outdoor use.
• Lapped ridge: the surface undergoes mechanical processing that makes it smoother and shinier, thus enhancing the aesthetic value of the material and making it ideal for residential interior projects. The deliberately moderate and uneven surface shine allows for a more faithful reproduction of the appearance of polished natural stone.
• Full field lapped: surface obtained by passing abrasive wheels over the surface to make it completely shiny and achieve a ‘mirror effect’.

The format identifies the shape and size of the tile. The most commonly used shapes are quadrangular (square and rectangle), but there are also polygonal shapes (hexagons, octagons, etc.) and complex profiles (Moorish, Provençal, etc.). With current technology, it is possible to obtain any shape in principle.

The dimensions can also vary, from a few centimetres per side (mosaic) to one metre.

What is the tile selection class?

The tile selection class is another parameter that characterises the quality of the product.

Only the 1st choice is regulated by standards. In this case, for example, with regard to appearance defects, no more than five defective tiles per hundred are allowed. The other choices (2nd, 3rd, commercial, kiln yield, etc.) are of lower quality and may contain a greater number of defects.

Some collections feature colour variations between tiles. This is a distinctive feature of the product, which should be enhanced by drawing tiles from several boxes during installation to achieve the best possible colour mix.

When identifying the ideal type of tile for the project we have in mind, it is necessary to evaluate technical and aesthetic aspects.

Technical characteristics

Technical characteristics are those necessary for the material to perform its function adequately and reliably.

They can be divided into several categories, characteristics:

• regularity
• structural
• mechanical mass
• mechanical surface
• thermo-hygrometric
• chemical
• safety

Regularity characteristics

Regularity characteristics define the suitability of a batch of tiles for ‘regular’ tiling, i.e. free from ‘irregularities’ such as depressions or bumps, steps between adjacent tiles, and uneven grout lines.

Structural characteristics

Structural characteristics describe the structure of the material of which the tile is made: in particular, the porosity of the tile. The measure of porosity is water absorption, which reaches its lowest values in porcelain stoneware. Higher values are found in single-fired tiles, majolica, cottoforte and terracotta.

Massive mechanical characteristics

Massive mechanical characteristics indicate the resistance to loads (such as the weight of people and furniture on the floor) that the tiling must withstand. They are called ‘massive’ because they involve the tile in its “mass”, and to distinguish them from ‘superficial’ characteristics that describe the surface.
The mechanical characteristics are flexural strength and flexural breaking load.
The former relates to the material of which the tile is made and is directly proportional to water absorption.
The breaking load, on the other hand, is a characteristic of the finished tile, with its structure and dimensions. It is therefore directly proportional to thickness.
Another characteristic in this category is impact resistance.

Surface mechanical characteristics

These characteristics concern the working surface of the tile, associated with resistance to scratches, scuffs, chipping, and deterioration caused by hard objects moving on or in contact with the surface itself.
They are mainly relevant to floor tiles. The most important characteristic is abrasion resistance, which measures the degree to which the tile wears down (in the case of unglazed tiles) or changes its appearance (in the case of glazed tiles) as a result of the above actions.
In unglazed tiles, this value increases as water absorption decreases and is therefore high in porcelain stoneware.
However, this value may vary depending on the treatments applied: in the case of terracotta, impregnation with various natural or synthetic substances; in the case of porcelain stoneware, smoothing and polishing.
In glazed tiles, abrasion resistance depends exclusively on the glaze. Lighter-coloured tiles show the effects of wear more, also because they are more difficult to clean.

Thermo-hygrometric characteristics

Thermo-hygrometric characteristics indicate resistance to particular temperature (‘thermo’) and humidity (‘hygrometric’) conditions, such as resistance to thermal shock, frost resistance and, for glazed tiles only, resistance to crazing. Sudden temperature changes (such as when we place a hot container on a tiled kitchen countertop) and exposure to frost should not cause any damage to the tile.
Frost resistance depends greatly on porosity or water absorption. The lower the latter, the lower the likelihood of frost damage.

Cavitation refers to the appearance of fine cracks in the glaze, caused by certain construction and environmental conditions. Resistance to cavitation depends on the composition of the glaze. Some glazes are therefore more susceptible than others.
Other thermo-hygrometric characteristics are thermal expansion and moisture expansion, i.e. the extent to which tiles can increase in size when exposed to higher levels of temperature and humidity.
As far as the former is concerned, there are no significant differences between the various types of tiles, although it can increase where there is an abundance of the glass phase, i.e. in products with a more compact, vitrified support.
Moisture expansion, on the other hand, is generally related to water absorption, although there are rather wide variations, probably caused by the effects of other microstructural characteristics, such as the nature and distribution of the different phases present.

Chemical characteristics

The chemical characteristics are stain resistance, resistance to household products and resistance to acids and bases.
The higher the porosity of the tile, the greater its resistance to chemical attack.
The situation is different for glazed products, where the glazed surface is certainly effective in making the working surface compact and non-absorbent. Resistance decreases in the presence of colours and decorations that are particularly sensitive to aggressive agents, especially acids. On the other hand, resistance is excellent in unglazed products, such as porcelain stoneware.

Safety features

Safety features refer to accident or health risks associated with the use of tiles.
The main one is slip resistance, which is essential for outdoor, public and industrial environments. This feature is inversely proportional to the surface friction coefficient.
Another feature is the release of lead and cadmium (metals sometimes contained in glazes), which must be particularly controlled in the case of contact with substances intended for food use, for example on kitchen worktops.

Porcelain stoneware tiles have three main aesthetic characteristics: size, colour and decoration.

Format:

The format is a characteristic that significantly influences the visual appearance of the tiled surface.

As the format varies, so does the density of the joints (grout lines) between the tiles, becoming denser as the format decreases and wider, and therefore less visible, as the format increases.

The most common formats are square or rectangular (although there are also hexagonal, octagonal, Provençal, Moorish, etc.), simple shapes that allow for a wide range of solutions.

In fact, to change the visual impact, simply change the pattern of the grout lines (for example, switching from continuous grout lines in both directions to staggered grout lines) or their orientation in relation to the sides or axes of the surface to be covered.
Another variation is to combine tiles of different sizes.

By combining these two methods and thanks to creative research and innovation, today's tiling solutions are virtually endless.

Colour:

In glazed tiles, the colour comes from the glaze. The colour range achievable in ceramic glazes is virtually limitless and includes any base colour, shade or nuance.

For the same colour, it is possible to create surfaces that differ in terms of gloss, shine or reflectivity (‘matt’) and colour texture.

From the initial neutral colours of a few decades ago, when it was only a high-performance technical product, we have moved on to a wider range of solid colours and then to granular colour textures, imitating particular natural stones.

This objective is achieved by working on the composition and starting powders, as well as by treating the surface with special effects such as veining, shading, colour interpenetration, etc. The colour solutions are then enhanced by the possibility of creating glossy and reflective surfaces through sanding and polishing.

Decoration:

the range of decorations is practically endless. Thanks to digital screen printing, any design, even complex and multicoloured ones, and any photograph can be created on the surface of a tile.

There are also ‘complete’ decorations on each individual tile, meaning that all the tiles in that batch are identical, and decorations that involve several tiles, to be laid in such a way as to form a complex, large-scale design.