Its been an exciiting few months for TileClick and also very busy! So apologies for the lack of blog writing for our regular readers.

Where do we start! On the surface you may notice some changes, our expansion plans have been happening a bit more rapidly than we had anticipated, so over the last few weeks a number of collections have been brought on-line. These include the Continental and Elegance Collections.

Both of these collections have been carefully picked from a selection of hundreds of imported tile ranges. Why did we bring them online, well as the UK’s leading independent online tile reseller, we are always being approached to add new manufatcurers, suppliers, importers etc etc. Its never an easy choice to decide what to choose, so we focus on bathroom wall and floor tiles, kitchen walls and floors and general floor tiles, trying to cover as many bases as we can, to give our customers the best options of high quality tiles, that are backed up by tileclicks exceptional level of service.

We also consider the environmental impact, the UK already has a huge amount of tiles sitting warehouse to be sold, so why should we just add to that? There is no point! So we only target tiles already in the UK, helping reduce our carbon footprint.

In addition, we have to carefully make sure that the products that we put on our site are of a high quality, and this process is reliable, there are many cheap imports that are over priced to mimick a typically better made product, you do get what you pay for – one thing Tileclick ensure is that we are competitive and give good value for money, good product – good prices.

In addition to these two ranges, we are also busy expanding our stock of RAK ceramic products, we have been dealing with RAK for over 4 years now, and as in most instances, again were the first online seller of RAK products. These ceramic and porcelain tiles are extremely elegant and stylish and are made in the UAE.

Another exciting development is to be able to annnounce that we will soon be a key online reseller for Johnson Tiles, a traditional british manufacturer, based in Stoke on Trent, with Pilkongton now gone, and one of the UK’s most commonly known tile manufactures. We are working closely with sales managers and National Directors to produce a unique and stylish collection of tiles from Johnson.

There will be more porcelain tiles, floor tiles, wall tiles, kitchen and bathroom tiles to choose from. One of our existing suppliers, manufacturer British Ceramic Tile are bringing out some new ranges! Although we dont have anymore information than that at this present moment, but we have managed to acquire more warehousing which is enabling us to carry a completely new and exciting range of tiles.

We have been searching for tiles to bring on board that will help to fill in any holes we have in respect of types and colours of tiles, but at the same time ensuring we find reliable and high quality products to add to our current ranges. We understand that choosing tiles is not an easy task so therefore, we have also tried to ensure we arent duplicating what we already have. We have however, removed some of the older ranges in some cases to make room for the new stuff which we hope you love!

There are new vibrant colours, but at the moment we are trying to work out range names and product descriptions! As soon as we have more, we’ll let you know.

What is the benefit of buying a porcelain tile over a ceramic tile? Well, the main advantage is that Porcelain Tiles are considerably more durable and stronger, a good thing if you are tiling your floor in an area of relatively heavy foot traffic. This added strength does however mean that these tiles are harder to cut, drill etc etc. Diamond tipped drills and wet cutting tools will be needed as opposed to more traditional manual tile cutters and scribes.

Another advantage is that the added strength in them also means that they can be made larger! Contemporary living requirements of today has resulted in more large format 30×60 or 60×60 and now even larger!! being preferred. The porcelain tiles also usually have a straighter cut edge, as opposed to a more bevelled edge that a pressed ceramic tile will have, this adds to the sharpness in lines and joints and again adds to the contemporary feel.

Polished Porcelain tiles should also be sealed. This is because of in the manufacturing process, the surface of the tiles, if magnified considerably would look a bit like a mountain range! The surface is then polished down with machine to flatten out the peaks and giving a nice polished finish. However, one problem with this is that the some of the peaks do not snap off and get bent over like small barbs, this then creates a potential dirt trap for very small dust particle to collect, over time which will eventually effect the look of your tiles. A product such as lithofin fz impregnator is an ideal product to use as a sealer, it is a liquid that basically goes in and fills all the micro holes and pits, hardens off and stops dirt collecting in them. It is worth doing this before and after laying them as grout dust is a prefect example of fine dust!!

There can be draw backs for porcelain tiles as well, there added strength can also mean that they are harder to cut and drill, requiring more specialist and proffesional drilling and cutting equipment as the strength of the tile can blunt a drill very quickly and having the wrong bits can require 10 or more drill bits for one hole! So you do need to make sure that you have the right tools dor the job.

As was mentioned earlier, the engineering aspect of porcelain tiles is different from ceramic. Most ceramic tiles are ‘pressed’ this means that the edges of the tiles are slightly rounded, which is absolutely fine in most bathroom or kitchen environments. However, in a room where a very specific design is required and the tiles are required to be butted against each other tiles with flat, 90 degree edges are the only tiles that will work in these scenarios. The 90 degree edge is known in the trade as ‘rectified’, this allows flush fitting without a grout joint if necessary.