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Answers

Is porcelain terrazzo real terrazzo?

No. Porcelain terrazzo is a fired clay tile with a printed surface. The aggregate you can see is in the glaze, at a fixed depth, and there is none beneath it. It costs a fraction of cement terrazzo and it behaves differently, which is fine — as long as a specification does not call it terrazzo.
Porcelain — layer detailFired clay body, printed surface. Published ranges, not our measured figures.substrate — not to scaleFired clay body8 mmPrinted glaze surface1 mmPorcelainPublished range. Our measured figures are listed separately.
Layer detail. Thicknesses are published ranges, not our measured figures.
Reference photograph of a terrazzo surface, s20. Not a photograph of our goods.
A printed surface on a fired body. The chips are a picture of chips, and the edge is where that shows.
Reference photograph of a terrazzo surface, s43. Not a photograph of our goods.
A printed module. The repeat is the tell: a through-body material does not repeat.

Reference photographs. They show the material and the finish; they are not photographs of goods we made, and the colour on screen is not a colour-match.

The figures, and where each one comes from

Property Porcelain terrazzo Real terrazzo
Matrix fired clay cement or resin with aggregate
Aggregate depth printed, surface only through the full thickness
Water absorption near zero typically 0.3-0.6%
Cost per m2 low materially higher
Repair replace the tile patch and re-ground

Why the processes are not interchangeable

The cost difference is not a quality judgement, it is a thickness difference. Terrazzo has to be ground to a flat surface, which means handling material twice and curing it properly; a printed tile is fired once. What the buyer is choosing between is a floor and a picture of a floor, and the honest answer says so.

What these figures are, and what they are not

No figures in the left column are ours. The absorption range applies to cement-bound terrazzo specifically and does not apply to resin-bound, which is why this table names the binder in every row.

Measured data sheets and test reports

If you are specifying this

We have not published products against this question yet. Send us the process, thickness and quantity and we will quote it against what we can actually form, rather than against a catalogue.

Send a specification Ask for a sample