FAQ

Valverdi Indoor-Out is a co-ordinating range of indoor and outdoor porcelain tiles - designed to expand and enhance your living space. Valverdi ranges comprise of a stunning 10mm thick porcelain tile for indoor use, and a 20mm frost-proof outdoor porcelain tile designed to handle the ever changing British outdoors. Valverdi Indoor-Out tiles create an almost seamless transition from inside your home to your outdoor space. Available in a wide range of striking colours, Valverdi Indoor-Out tiles look stylish, are slip-resistant, and are completely colourfast, ensuring that your tiles will look stunning throughout their life.

All Valverdi tiles are made of vitrified porcelain. During the manufacturing process the powder is pressed with much more force and then fired at extremely high temperatures, turning it into a glass-like substance. Once cooled the porcelain has exceptionally low porosity and is almost as hard as diamond. This process is called vitrification and it's what makes Valverdi Indoor-Out tiles more dense and hard wearing than other porcelain tiles on the market.

No, all our porcelain tiles are completely colourfast and will never fade or bleach. They will look as good in 20 years as they do today! The surface of all Valverdi tiles are non-porous and therefore resistant to staining too. This also means that algae will not form on the surface of the tile either.

Technically yes - but we don't recommend this approach for a number of reasons. To be successful you would have to lay it onto a de-coupling layer onto a cured and reinforced concrete bed and incorporate expansion joints as required. Outdoor environments are much tougher on a tile than indoors, and the 20mm outdoor tile has been designed to cope with this. Elements such as children’s bikes, gardening equipment and differential solar expansion between the tile and the concrete bed may put stresses on a 10mm thick porcelain tile. We recommend using the 20mm tile externally and the 10mm tile internally.

Absolutely! We've seen Valverdi tiles used in some fantastic balcony and roof terrace projects. Laying Valverdi tiles onto support pedestals they can quickly and easily transform your roof terrace or balcony with minimum fuss and effort.

Yes, all Valverdi Indoor-Out tiles have anti-slip tile surfaces. The indoor tile has good slip resistance even when wet, and the outdoor tile has an added HD slip resistant surface to cope with outdoor elements.

No. All Valverdi porcelain tiles have non-porous surfaces, so moisture cannot get inside and cause damage when it freezes and expands.

Most tiles will have a slight bow along their length due to the firing process, which is more obvious in rectangle or plank tiles. This can be accentuated by certain laying patterns, but can be avoided by increasing the joint width and choosing a stack bond or 1/3 broken bond pattern. Lay the tiles out before fixing to determine the best pattern and joint width to avoid lipping issues.

You should use a minimum 2mm grout width with the indoor tiles and 4mm for the outdoor tile.

The tiles themselves do not require sealing, however we strongly recommend using a protective sealer during the grouting process. Warmer weather can cause newly laid grout to flash dry and leave an invisible and extremely hard to clean polymer coating on the tile. Using a protective sealer will save time during the grouting process, improve the look of the grouting and help prevent a polymer coat drying on the surface of the tiles.

Valverdi Indoor-Out porcelain is incredibly hard to scratch, making it suitable for both domestic and commercial applications. Don’t take our word for it though, order a free sample and try to scratch it!

To keep them looking good, just sweep and occasionally clean with a damp mop and some outdoor tile cleaner. To remove scuff marks or to spring clean winter dirt use a more intensive cleaner as and when required. The tiles are completely unaffected by jet washing.

Yes! In fact, the dense porcelain retains and dispurses heat more evenly than other tiles making your underfloor heating system more efficient. Because of their inbuilt heat retention, Valverdi tiles heat up quicker and stay warm for longer. This means you can run your underfloor heating system for less time - saving you money too!

Valverdi porcelain tiles are machine rectified to the same size, but there can be a slight variation between production runs or batches. Indoor and outdoor tiles are made on separate production runs so sizing of indoor and outdoor tiles can vary slightly. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding the sizing of your tiles.

Absolutely, however you will need to check the size of the indoor and outdoor tiles are similar. If the sizes are different you will need to use different grout widths or stagger the joints between indoor and outdoor. See above as to why the indoor and outdoor tiles may be a slightly a different size. Get in touch with us to check their current calibrations.

When porcelain tiles are made they are fired at very high temperatures in advanced kilns. However, when they leave the kiln the tiles will all be slightly different sizes due to shrinkage. At Valverdi we ensure all our tiles are rectified, a process where their edges are ground to precise dimensions so size variations between tiles within a batch will be very small. This allows you to use a much narrower joint to give a clean, precise and slim grout joint. If you choose tiles that are non-rectified you will have to use much wider grout joints and lose that clean modern look.