What to consider when choosing tiles for your terrace

When re-designing your terrace or patio area, you should choose with both your heart and your brain. Unobtrusive natural materials are an investment that will survive changing trends and fashions.
Falls are the most common cause of accidents in the home and wet, slippery surfaces are often the biggest sinner. So it’s important to choose tiles with a high degree of slip resistance for outdoor use.
Most tile material has undergone slip resistance testing, and you should check out the results!
Outdoor slate tiles have a naturally rustic appearance with a discreet textured surface that makes them completely non-slip. They get the highest possible score on the R13 slip resistance test scale. Our product data sheets contains test results for slip resistance and other parameters.
Exciting colours and patterns may be trendy and great fun, but they can often prove to be a short-lived joy. Trends come and go and our taste often changes with the times.
This makes it a good idea to choose more unobtrusive, classical terrace tiles that can withstand the test of time, not just in terms of quality, but also appearance. Then you can add other elements of colour, patterns, textiles and style. So your terrace can be a refreshing, summery, romantic oasis one year and an exotic meditation area the next.
Slate terrace tiles are a classical, neutral material that don’t shout for attention and serve as a reliable backcloth for your other design ideas. Often this may be no more than adding elements such as coloured cushions and textiles to update your style from year to year.
Many people want the style of their home’s interior to be replicated outdoors. One way of doing this is to choose neutral terrace tiles with accessories that match the interior style.
Another interesting and elegant way of integrating styles is simply to use the same materials outdoors and indoors. If you choose a similar type of furniture and other elements for your outdoor space, this will have the attractive effect of seamlessly integrating you living area with you terrace or garden.
We can supply slate tiles with both brushed and honed surfaces. This means you can choose the same type of slate for indoor and outdoor use, with a more non-slip surface outdoors and a smoother, more easy-care/cleaning-friendly surface indoors.
You can do the same with slate bricks. An indoor wall or chimney can continue outside as a retaining wall or screen in the garden or on the terrace.
Your terrace and garden should be a place for relaxation and recreation. We would rather spend our time relaxing than on maintenance tasks. Slate terrace or outdoor tiles require very little maintenance. A quick rinse with the garden hose is usually enough to get you ready for spring, year after year.
Rain, snow, hail, wind and sunshine The surface of your terrace must be non-slip and frost resistant.
Avoid porous materials that absorb water as these will suffer during winter. The freeze/thaw cycle can be tough up here in the north and this will gradually weaken materials that easily absorb water, causing them to crack.
Norwegian slate has a robust beauty and elegance, while also being extremely hard wearing, with low porousness.
Most people are familiar with a flagstone with its organic forms. But did you know that slate also comes as precisely cut tiles for both indoor and outdoor use?
Our ourdoor tiles are a 100 % natural product of pure, solid slate, created 750 million years ago. The stone blocks are quarried in the mountains and our quarrymen split the blocks into their natural layers by hand. The blocks are then cut into rectangular slabs and tiles.
The result is a robust local natural material with a record-low carbon footprint. Slate has a robust and minimalistic appearance, but gives the same good, warm feeling as walking in the mountains.
Slate tiles can be laid in a number of ways. The slate tiles can be glued to a pre-cast underlay (like ceramic tiles), laid directly on sand, gravel or grass, or laid on corner blocks.
With the last option you can very quickly lay a paved outdoor area that requires almost no maintenance, completely without using cement, glue or grouting. Installation is so simple that you can easily do it yourself and avoid the risk of cracks in the grouting or frost damage once the tiles are laid. The bricks can be laid directly on balconies, pre-cast verandas and solid wooden terraces. It’s also easy to build steps up to the house or down to the lawn.