Not only home: porcelain stoneware for public spaces

Not only home: porcelain stoneware for flooring environments and spaces open to the public

Porcelain stoneware is a versatile and resistant material, which finds wide application in homes and private contexts but can also be used successfully for the flooring of countless types of environments open to the public, such as BUSINESS areas, conference centres, hotels, airports, shops, museums, dining rooms, conference rooms and so on.

The floors placed in this type of structure are inevitably subjected to very important stresses, they get dirty easily due to the constant passage of people, animals, trolleys and mechanical means and must be able to withstand the trampling without deteriorating or cracking, but rather keeping their aesthetic characteristics of colour and shine intact.

Thanks to its physical properties of strength and hardness, porcelain stoneware is the perfect material to cover surfaces subjected to such significant stimuli: here are five excellent reasons to choose it.

Porcelain stoneware tiles are characteriSed by their high resistance, since this material is able to:

• resist abrasions, scratches and wear, and therefore towithstand in an excellent way both sudden shocks and light but repeated stresses, such as those caused by trampling;
• to withstand temperature changes, and therefore not to deteriorate in the event of exposure to the effect of atmospheric agents, frost, solar radiation and so on;
• support high weight loads without deteriorating or cracking.

If we think about the amount of impacts that the floor of a store, or the lobby of a hotel, or an airport must endure every day, it is clear that only a particularly hard surface is able to offer good performance over time, and porcelain stoneware provides important guarantees in this regard.

The porcelain stoneware production process requires that the mixture in which the tiles are made is fired at particularly high temperatures, necessary to cause a permanent change in the chemical-physical structure, due to the welding of the material granules. The result of this process (which is called "greification") makes the material not only extremely resistant, but also impermeable to water, oil and many other substances that could stain it. For this reason, porcelain stoneware is perfect for use in environments visited by many people, whose floor requires frequent washing. Waterproofing, in fact, means that porcelain stoneware does not absorb dirt and at the same time reduces the drying time of the surface after exposure to water.

Keeping a floor covered with porcelain stoneware tiles clean is simple, cheap and quick, because dirt is not absorbed by the tile but remains on its surface, making it easy to remove. Porcelain stoneware can be subjected without problems to frequent washing, and its cleaning does not require the use of specific or expensive products: alcohol, ammonia or a simple neutral detergent for ceramic floors are enough to have a clean, polished and sanitised surface at all times.

A floor covered with porcelain stoneware does not require special maintenance, beyond the normal daily cleaning necessary to remove the dirt that deposits on its surface. To have a perfect floor, no periodic polishing or sanding treatments are required, nor the use of waxes or other additives.

Finally, porcelain stoneware is an extremely versatile material, capable of responding to every type of aesthetic need. There are countless types of porcelain stoneware tiles available on the market, able to adapt to any type of style and to blend in all contexts: you can choose coloured tiles or tiles with more sober tones, opt for the use of stucco matching the tile or play with contrasts, or opt for solutions that are inspired by the texture of wood, stone or marble, for an extremely realistic and natural result. Whatever the architectural design of the environment to be tiled, porcelain stoneware makes a valuable contribution to achieving an impeccable result not only from the point of view of functionality, but also from the aesthetic point of view.