Blog Large-format porcelain: what to know before you choose
Large-format porcelain is tile bigger than about two feet on a side, up to slabs taller than a door. Walk into a newly finished bathroom around Sarasota and the shower walls are often two or three of those pieces. These are the questions clients ask us most in front of a slab at Oracle Flooring & Design.
What size counts as large format?
There's no single line everyone agrees on, but once a tile is bigger than about two feet on a side, most people in the trade call it large format. From there it runs all the way up to slabs taller than a door: Porcelanosa's biggest pieces are more than ten feet long and five feet wide.
It's still porcelain, the dense, hard-fired kind of tile that barely takes in water, so the big pieces work in showers, kitchens and busy floors too, as long as that piece is made for the spot. Sizes, thicknesses and how it compares with ordinary tile are on our large-format porcelain page.
Where does large-format porcelain work best?
Anywhere you want one quiet surface with as few grout lines as possible:
- Shower walls, where fewer joints mean less to scrub and the wall reads as one piece of stone.
- Open floors that run from the kitchen into the living room without a grid breaking them up.
- The wall behind a bed, a TV or a fireplace, where a marble or onyx look shows at full scale.
- A kitchen backsplash in one or two pieces behind the cooktop. The same slabs make countertops too, cut and installed by trusted local fabricators.
- A lanai or a pool deck, as long as the maker rates that tile for outdoor use.
Small tile still wins in a few places. On a shower floor it follows the slope to the drain, and every grout line gives your feet a little grip. In a tight powder room full of corners, small pieces mean fewer awkward cuts.
Is large-format tile harder to install?
A little, yes. Here's why, before you choose it.
Big tiles show everything underneath them. A dip you'd never notice under small tile becomes an edge you can feel with bare feet, so the floor is checked with a long straightedge and the low spots are leveled before anything goes down. It's one of the first things we look at when we come out for your free estimate.
The back of every tile gets covered in mortar, edge to edge, not dabbed in spots, so there are no hollow places that sound off under your heel or crack when something heavy drops. Long, plank-shaped tiles are laid so each row shifts by a third of a tile or less instead of by half like bricks: a long tile can have the slightest bow along its length, and the shorter step keeps the edges flush.
Then there's getting it in the door. A slab the size of a closet door doesn't take tight turns, so the hallways, the stairs and, in a condo, the elevator are measured before we order. Certified installers who work with us regularly handle large-format porcelain, and delivery to your home is included when we install.
How do you pick the right one?
Start with the look, at full size. A marble vein that seems bold on a small sample can look quiet across a whole wall, and a quiet sample can turn busy once it's ten feet tall. That's why the slabs stand up in our showroom instead of sitting on a shelf as chips.
Then the finish. Polished porcelain shines and bounces light around a room; matte and textured faces are kinder on a floor that gets wet.
Before anything is ordered, the layout gets drawn: where the joints fall, how the veins run from one piece to the next, where the cuts go around windows, niches and outlets. That drawing decides how many pieces you need. Everything comes from the same production run, with a few extra pieces put aside for the cuts and for any repair down the road.
How do you clean large-format porcelain?
Like any porcelain. Sweep or vacuum up the sand, then damp-mop with a mild cleaner made for tile, and skip oil soaps and waxes, which leave a film. Glazed porcelain never needs sealing, and with so few grout lines there's very little to scrub; the grout can be sealed so it resists stains.
Where can you see it in Sarasota?
At Oracle Flooring & Design, 1175 N Washington Blvd in Sarasota, where Porcelanosa large-format porcelain stands at full size. We're an Exclusive Porcelanosa Authorized Dealer, listed on Porcelanosa's US dealer map, and the showroom is open Monday to Saturday with no appointment needed. If you'd like, borrow samples to see them in your own light at home, and when you're ready we'll come out for a free estimate.
