The most commonly asked questions
1. Do you have tiles in stock?
2. Can I mix screen-printed and Relief tiles?
3. How much do the tiles cost?
4. Should we add extra tiles on to the order?
5. Are your tiles suitable for the floor?
6. What does transport cost?
7. What are your lead times?
8. Can I get a tile that looks like raw terracotta?
1. Do you have tiles in stock?
Almost never. It’s part of our philosophy that we only make what is required. It avoids waste and allows us to create bespoke tile installations from the many thousands of tiles that are possible with out made-to-order production. See more information about lead times below.
2. Can I mix screen-printed and Relief tiles?
Yes, absolutely. The only thing you need to remember is that there is a minimum of 3m2 / 33sf per solid base glaze colour. Screen-printed tiles allow a wide variety of colours within even a small installation because they all have the same solid base glaze (soft white PPWM or cream PPM6). Then it’s normal to have three, four or sometimes more screen-print colours. Relief tiles are one solid base glaze colour and so to have three different colours in one installation, for example, you would need to order at least 9m2 / 100sf.
3. How much do the tiles cost?
The price you pay for the tiles will depend on the quantity of tiles ordered as well as the type of installation. The cost of delivery will depend again on quantity and the destination (the tiles are sent directly from our factory in rural Portugal). This all means that it’s hard to give an exact price. Being handmade to order, they are of course different to mass-produced tiles in terms of price, but also in terms of individuality, beauty, uniqueness… (we could go on).
4. Should we add extra tiles on to the order?
We recommend an overage of between 5 and 10%. This is probably less than your tile installer will recommend but there is a reason for that. Tile installers will normally calculate the size of the wall and then add on 20% or sometimes more. We create a bespoke layout design for you and use that to calculate exactly how many tiles you need. Because we work in whole tiles there is usually a certain amount of overage already built in. The extra tiles are to cover for the eventuality that tiles arrive broken (rare but it does happen) or that tiles are broken during installation. In the event that new tiles are required, we reproduce the replacement tiles as quickly as possible but it will still be several week
5. Are your tiles suitable for the floor?
If you are considering our tiles for the floor, it’s good to know that we also produce an extra thick tile that is pressed to make it more robust. Our normal wall tiles are 1cm / 0.4” thick while our floor tiles are 1.4cm thick. The pressing makes them a little flatter which is handy for the floor. We recommend matte glazes for the floor. It offers more grip, particularly when wet. It’s worth remember though that all glazed ceramics will have relatively low slip resistance. This is because the glaze is effectively a layer of glass that fuses to the tile during firing in the kiln. Should you wish to know the official DCOF slip test rating for our matte glazed tiles, it’s R9.
6. What does transport cost?
This obviously varies according to where the tiles are delivered to but also according to quantity. The higher the quantity, the lower the delivery cost per m2 / sq. ft. An order of 40m2 / 400sf for example, can easily be a quarter to a third of the cost of delivering 4m2 / 40sf. Get in touch and tell us your plans and we’ll give you a rough estimate of the delivery cost.
7. What are your lead times?
Lead times are normally around five weeks for production of the tiles along with approximately ten days for delivery. We would love to guarantee that you will receive your tiles by a particular date but it’s just not possible. This is partly because we make tiles to order rather than holding stock so it’s always possible that something goes wrong in the kiln and certain tiles have to be remade. The other reason is that we use couriers to deliver the tiles and they offer us no guarantees as to delivery dates.
8. Can I get a tile that looks like raw terracotta?
It’s possible to achieve the look of raw, unglazed tiles without all the disadvantages. We’ve developed a matte glaze which looks similar to raw terracotta while having the benefits of glazing (waterproof, stain-proof, durable, etc). This glaze in matte is called M998 . There is also a gloss version called B096.
