What are porcelain tiles?
 
Porcelain tile is a ceramic tile with very distinct qualities. It refers to an extreme compact, dry or dust pressed tile that produced with high quality raw materials and specialized production techniques. To ensure the robustic of porcelain tile, it is pressed under high pressure and fired at temperature as high as 1250 Celsius for a period of time.  The product is completely vitrified and hence completely impervious and with excellent mechanical properties.
 
What is glazed through body porcelain tiles?
 
For a glazed through body porcelain tile, pigments are added to the mixture before glazing. That is to guarantee the perfect matches of colour for the body of tile with the glaze surface. The advantage of this is if the glaze surface is chipped or worn out, the colour of the body beneath closely resembles the colour of the glazed surface. Hence the damage is unnoticeable. Identical with glazed porcelain, the hardness of glaze is testing using an index call Porcelain Enamel Institute with the rating tested from 0 – 5 classification.
 
PEI RATINGS
 
This test is applied for glazed porcelain tiles and more applicable for floor tiles. The rating is measures the abrasive resistance or hardness of the tile’s glaze on scale of 0 – 5.
 
 
Class 0 (PEI 0)
 
No foot traffic: 
Recommended for walls only and should not be used on floors.
 
Class 1 (PEI 1)
 
Very light foot traffic only:
Suitable for residential bathroom with low or very low barefoot traffic.
 
Class       2
(PEI 2)
 
Minimal foot traffic:
Suitable for bathrooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and living rooms
 
Class 3 (PEI 3)
 
It’s for light to moderate foot traffic:
Suitable for normal foot traffic at the usage including in kitchen, outdoor, entryways and hallways. Recommended for residential installation with normal foot traffic.
 
Class 4 (PEI 4)
For moderate to high foot traffic:
Suitable for light to medium commercial applications and in high foot traffic areas for residential application.
Class 5 (PEI 5)
 
Heavy Traffic:
Ideally suitable for all residential and heavy commercial areas under normal foot traffic conditions.