Clearance outdoor and pool area tiles
Alfresco areas, patios and pool surrounds. Outdoors the tile has to handle sun, rain, thermal movement and bare wet feet, and the slip rating is the specification that matters most.
Buying outdoor and pool area tiles: what actually matters
P4 for a pool surround, and P is the rating to ask for
The P rating comes from a wet pendulum test that models a bare wet foot, which is the actual condition around a pool. The R rating comes from an oiled ramp walked in boots, which models a commercial kitchen. They are not interchangeable and they do not convert cleanly. For a barefoot wet area the widely accepted minimum is P4, rising to P5 for a ramp or a slope.
Outdoor tiles need a fall, and they need movement joints
Water has to go somewhere, so an outdoor area is laid to a fall rather than dead level, usually around 1 in 100 away from the building. And a large expanse of tile in full Australian sun expands and contracts far more than an indoor floor, so it needs flexible movement joints at the perimeter and through the field. Skipping them is what makes an outdoor floor tent up and lift off the slab a few summers later.
Light colours, for feet
A dark tile in full sun gets hot enough to be genuinely painful barefoot, which quietly makes an expensive entertaining area unusable in the middle of the day. Lighter colours and textured finishes stay markedly cooler.
Why this stock is such good value
Clearance tiles are not seconds. Everything here is first grade. It is cheap because it is finite: a line an importer is clearing, a colourway a manufacturer has stopped making, or the tail of a container that nobody wants to keep warehousing. The catch is not quality, it is that you cannot get more. On a normal tile you can go back in six weeks for another two boxes. Here you cannot, so the quantity you order is the quantity you will ever have.