Porcelain tiles are harder and more durable than ceramic tiles, but they are not indestructible. Heavy impacts — a dropped hammer, a cast iron pot, furniture corner dropped during moving — can chip or crack porcelain. And for large format porcelain tiles (600x600mm, 1200x600mm or larger), replacement is particularly disruptive and expensive. Professional on-site repair is often a superior solution.
Why Porcelain Is Different to Ceramic
Porcelain is fired at higher temperatures than ceramic, making it denser, less porous and harder. It’s through-body in nature, meaning the colour extends through the full depth of the tile rather than just the surface glaze. This is good news for repair — a chip doesn’t expose a white or buff clay body, but the same colour as the tile face, which makes colour matching easier and more forgiving.
Types of Porcelain Damage We Repair
- Corner chips — the most common damage type, especially on floor tiles near doorways
- Edge chips — along tile joints or at thresholds
- Surface cracks — hairline or wider cracks across the tile face
- Broken tile sections — where part of a tile has broken away
Large Format Porcelain Tile Repair
Large format tiles (anything above 400x400mm) present particular replacement challenges. They require specialist installation equipment to lift and replace without damaging adjacent tiles. The grout lines are often very fine (2mm or less), meaning any colour variation between the old and new tiles is immediately visible. For these reasons, repair of large format tiles is almost always preferable to replacement where the damage is cosmetic.
Matt, Polished and Textured Finishes
Porcelain tiles come in a wide range of finishes — polished, matt, semi-polished, textured and stone-effect. We carry repair compounds and finishing tools to match all porcelain surface types, including the challenging task of matching a polished porcelain gloss finish.
