What types of tiles are there ?

Full body porcelain tiles / Full body fully vitrified tiles / Double loading tiles

Full body porcelain tile section

Porcelain tiles or fully vitrified tiles are ceramic tiles, but with a very low water absorption. They are usually made from kaolin clays, feldspar, silica and coloring oxides and are fired at about 1200 C. Porcelain tiles are hard wearing and can be used on walls or floors.
Furthermore viewing the broken side of a double loading tile, you will see from the top surface to the bottom, they are the same material, on the other hand, you will fine different layers on broken side of single loading tile.
These tiles can be polished, unpolished or rustic surface.

Porcelain tiles = Fully Vitrified Tiles
Porcelain tiles or fully vitrified tiles are ceramic tiles, but with a very low water absorption. They are usually made from kaolin clays, feldspar, silica and coloring oxides and are fired at about 1200 C. Porcelain tiles are hard wearing and can be used on walls or floors.
Porcelain tile can be polished, unpolished or rustic surface.

Semi-Vitrified Tiles
Tiles, which can either be unglazed or glazed. Tiles in this category can be either dry pressed or extruded and have water absorption of between 0.5 to 3% (vitrified) Class BIb – dry pressed, and 3% to 6% (semi-vitrified), Class BIIa – dry pressed.

Mosaics
These tiles are very small tiles, usually less than 100 cm2. Mosaics can be glazed or unglazed and made from porcelain, ceramic, glass or natural stone.

Quarry tiles *
These tiles are made from natural clay, squeezed through an extruding machine, and then fired. They are mostly available in terracotta, black and white colors.

Terracotta tiles *
These tiles are also made from local clays. Terracotta means "cooked earth" and these products tend to be very absorbent, so need sealing when used on the floor.

Natural stone products *;
limestone, marble, granite and slate are quarried from the earth. Some are extremely hard, and some quite soft. Some may need sealing

* not exported by Geoffering Ltd

Nota about nomenclature we use in China

''Full body'' means when you break the tile, you will see the materials used are completely same in the surface and the body. Means the design is inside the tile body, the design on the surface looks more beautiful because we polished it.

"Polish" is normally used in talking about porcelain tile and "Shiny / Glazed" is used in ceramic tile. Polished means a production procedure but "shiny / glazed" is only a word to say the appearance of ceramic tile surface.

For the look ceramic tile can be glazed- = shiny or unglazed = mat-glazed = mat, but nothing concerns about polish

Floor tile classification

To help you choose a tile to suit your needs

	CLASS 1 Soft soled footwear or bare feet areas, bathrooms and bedrooms without direct access from the outside
	CLASS 2 Living areas of homes but with the exception of kitchens, entrances and other rooms which may have a lot of traffic
	CLASS 3 All residential uses including kitchens, halls, corridors, balconies and terraces
	CLASS 4 Regularly commercial used areas, entrances, commercial kitchens, shopping centers...
	CLASS 5 Heavy pedestrian traffic over sustained periods: public areas entrances such as shopping centers, hotels, airports...
	This symbol indicates that a tile is frost resistant

Source: tiles.org.uk