Porcelain paving is the low maintenance answer in Perth, and the only surface we lay that never needs sealing. Near zero water absorption, so it does not stain, does not go green in a shaded return and does not care what gets spilled on it.
Get a price for porcelain paving
A photo of the area and a rough size is enough to price it.
Outdoor porcelain is not a tile that happens to be outside. It is a 20mm structural paver, roughly twice the thickness of an indoor tile, made to take load and weather. Anything thinner belongs on a floor inside and will not survive a Perth pool surround.
It is manufactured rather than quarried, which means every piece is the same size to within a fraction of a millimetre. That is what lets it be laid to a narrow, consistent joint, and a 3mm to 5mm joint running dead straight across a surround is a large part of why porcelain reads as expensive.
We lay it wet on a full mortar bed with the appropriate primer on the paver's underside, cut it with a wet saw, and grout the joint. No sealing, then or ever.
It solves a specific set of problems very well and it is not the answer to every job. Where it wins, it wins outright.
An alfresco with an outdoor kitchen, a barbecue, a wine glass and children. Porcelain absorbs effectively nothing, so red wine, sunscreen, oil and leaf tannin sit on the surface and wipe off. This is the case for it in one sentence.
The narrow south side of a Perth house that never sees sun is where porous stone goes green every winter. Porcelain does not, because there is nothing for the algae to get into.
Where an indoor tile has a matching outdoor porcelain in the same range, the floor can run through the door with no visual break at all. Nothing else on this site can do that, and on a modern Perth alfresco it is often the whole reason for choosing it.
Dark charcoal porcelain in full Perth summer sun gets genuinely hot underfoot. It is the one real drawback for a pool surround, it is entirely a colour question, and a pale porcelain does not have the problem.
Everybody assumes the perfectly consistent material is the easy one. It is the opposite, and the reason is that porcelain hides nothing. When every paver is identically sized, any error in your setout is visible as a joint that tapers, and there is no natural variation to absorb it.
It also does not bond the way stone does. Porcelain is effectively non absorbent, which is exactly why it does not stain, and it means a normal mortar bed has nothing to grab. It needs a slurry primer on the underside of every paver, and a bed mixed to suit. Porcelain laid onto a plain sand and cement bed will lift, sometimes years later, and that is the most common porcelain failure in Perth.
And it cuts slowly. Every cut is a wet saw cut, there is no splitting it, and a curved pool surround in large format porcelain is a lot of careful, slow cutting. It is worth knowing that the material with no maintenance has the most demanding installation.
With porcelain the paver itself swings the number more than anything we do, because the range between the cheapest and the dearest outdoor porcelain is wider than for any stone here.
A plain mid grey 600 by 600 is inexpensive. A 1200 by 600 stone-look panel from a range with a matching indoor tile can cost several times that. Same laying, very different supply.
Large format is a two person lift on every single piece, and it is slower to set and level. The size that looks best is usually also the size that takes longest.
Every paver needs a slurry primer on its underside or it will not bond, and every cut is a slow wet saw cut because porcelain cannot be split. This is why the no-maintenance material is the demanding one to install.
Matching an indoor tile out through a door means the levels and the threshold detail have to be planned and executed to a tighter tolerance than a standalone surface.
Porcelain does not weather, stain or wear. When a porcelain surface fails in Perth it was almost always the installation, and usually one of the first two below.
Cut and fitted on site, piece to piece. The surface for a freeform pool or an awkward courtyard.
The default Perth pool stone. Cool underfoot, grippy wet, and sealed before we leave.
Pale, local and soft. Right against a limestone wall or under an alfresco, wrong on a driveway.
A photo of the area and a rough size is enough. If we think another material would serve you better we will say so, and say why.