Queenstown · Wānaka · Central Otago
Large format porcelain
A 3-metre panel is unforgiving. Every millimetre the wall is out, the tile reports.
What is included
Substrate checked to plane and corrected before anything is lifted — the tolerance a slab needs is not the tolerance a 300×300 forgives.
Clips and wedges on every panel, so lippage is controlled across the whole field and not just at the joint you happen to be looking at.
Full adhesive coverage with the correct notch and back-buttering. A void under a large panel is a crack waiting for a dropped bottle.
Cut on the wet saw wherever the cut will be seen or the material demands it, including drilled penetrations for mixers and wastes.
Set-out that puts the joint where the room wants it, and keeps the grid running through door thresholds.
Why this costs what it costs
Two people and a frame, not one person and hope
A panel that size is handled by two installers with suction frames. That is double the labour for those hours, and it is the difference between a placed tile and a broken one.
Flatness is bought before the tile arrives
Large format converts an invisible 6mm hollow in a wall into a visible shadow line across a $400 panel. The levelling compound and the day it takes are not an upsell — they are the only way the material works.
Mitres are slow, so they are quoted separately
A mitred external corner on porcelain is the detail that makes the job look like stone instead of cladding. It is also hours of careful cutting per corner, so it is quoted as an extra rather than buried in the rate. Ask for it and you will see what it costs before you agree to it.
Questions
- What size can you actually handle?
- Slab formats up to 3200×1600. Above 1200mm on any edge the job changes character — handling, cutting and substrate tolerance all become the main event rather than a detail.
- Will I see lippage?
- Some variation is inherent to the material — porcelain slabs have a manufacturing tolerance. What we control is that it stays inside the standard and stays out of the sightline. Anyone promising zero has not measured a slab.