Do you know the difference between through-body tile and non through-body tile? Is one superior to the other? How do modern manufacturing processes come into play? What do you need to know about through-body and surface color when specifying?
In this video, Crossville’s Heidi Vassalotti explains the real scoop on through-body and surface color in today’s porcelain tile. (You can also read the transcript below.)
Video Transcript
“Crossville Shares the Real Scoop on Through-Body Porcelain Tile”
…the difference between a through-body tile and a non-through-body tile. So, if we go back in time, about 30 years ago when we were first producing tile, tile generally was produced only as a through-body tile. By through-body, by definition, what we’re really saying here is that is an unglazed tile, so there is no surface visual to it, whatsoever. It’s just monolithic and solid, and the color runs all the way through the body of the tile.
Now, since then in the past 30 years, we’ve come up with a lot of great new technology that allows us to create really cool visuals on tile and textures, whether it’s a wood look, a concrete look, or in this case a terrazzo look. When you do that, really what we’re doing is we’re actually doing a color body tile with a decorated surface. This is a glazed tile. Unglazed tile. Glazed tiles have a decorated surface to them, and in most cases the manufacturer is putting a color body, so a color coordinating body tile where the color goes all the way through the body of the tile. This is probably 80, 90% of what gets specified out there.
The other question that people always ask is, they say, “Well through-body is actually a superior tile and it has a greater breaking strength.” And, that’s actually not true. The color body tiles, the glazed tiles can actually have as strong of a breaking strength, if not stronger. So, there’s really no variation in there, but I think the thing that people were most concerned about was, well, what happens if it chips? And so, they like the fact that you would see the color going all the way through the body, in that case.
In order to break this tile, the actual commercial breaking strength of it, I mean, some of these are in excess of 450 pounds per square inch, or 500 pounds, you would really have to take some serious damage. I always use the example of dropping a bowling ball from the second floor to be able to break it. So, that’s the difference between the two. One is not superior over the other, in any way, shape, or form.
