Porcelain tile

Porcelain is ceramic fired hotter and pressed harder, and in Florida the difference that matters is absorption: porcelain takes on almost no water. That is why one porcelain tile can run from a shower floor through the kitchen and out through the sliders onto a covered lanai, and why it does not stain, fade or soften in a climate that punishes most other floors.

Ordinary ceramic is fine on a wall that stays dry. On a floor here — with sand coming in on feet all year and a slab giving up moisture underneath — porcelain is the default for good reasons, and the best flooring for a Florida house says which of them.

Yes, and it is the most common reason people choose porcelain here. The material is indifferent to wind-driven rain and standing water, so a lanai floor can be the same tile as the kitchen behind the sliders and the room reads as one.

What changes outside is the surface, not the tile. Anything under a screen is treated as exterior, so the finish out there has to be the wet-rated one — most lines come in a matte or textured version of the same look for exactly this — and the setting bed and the falls are done as outdoor work. Tile installation covers both rooms as one job.

A rectified tile has been cut square after firing, so every edge is straight and every piece is the same size. That is what allows a tight grout line — the look most people are after with a large-format or a stone-look porcelain — because a joint can only be as narrow as the tiles are consistent.

It matters more than it sounds, and in the direction people do not expect: a tighter joint shows lippage more. One edge sitting proud of its neighbour is the failure everyone sees and nobody can fix afterwards, and a narrow joint has nowhere to hide it. So a rectified tile is also a decision about the substrate under it, which is priced as its own line on every proposal.

Glazed, for almost every floor and wall in a house. The wood, stone, marble and concrete looks porcelain has become known for are glazes, and a glazed porcelain on a coastal floor outlasts most alternatives because the sand tracked across it is softer than the surface.

Through-body porcelain carries its colour all the way through the tile, so a chip shows the same colour rather than a pale core. It earns its place in a commercial entrance or a garage — somewhere a hard knock is likely and the pattern matters less than the wear. Both stand upright at full size in the showroom, because a three-inch chip of either tells you nothing about how it reads across a floor.