It’s not very often that I get to lay porcelain paving which is a shame as all porcelain paving looks absolutely amazing in any garden and there’s no exception when it comes to the Kandla Grey, although it’s important to note that you might find the Kandla Grey porcelain paving under other names!

I actually purchased these as Nova Gris outdoor porcelain paving slabs, but when the pallets arrived they were labelled as Kandla Grey and then in brackets labelled as Vitoria Grey. A quick Google search of all 3 names and I quickly realised that they are all the same slab, just labelled differently depending on which supplier you get them from! So remember this when looking around at prices. So basically, the Kandla Grey, Vitoria Grey and Nova Gris are all the same porcelain paving slab, although other websites offering outdoor porcelain tiles as “light grey” also look suspiciously similar so it could be worth looking at these too when comparing prices.

Are the Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs good value for money?

Outdoor porcelain paving slabs are always going to be more expensive compared to purchasing concrete or natural sandstone paving but as far as porcelain goes, I would say that these are very good value for money.

The Kandla Grey porcelain are a great way to compare prices to sandstone paving since these are an imitation of the Kandla Grey sandstone but ofcourse without the riven surfaces and maintenance needed of natural stone.

The last time we purchased the Kandla Grey Indian sandstone paving slabs we paid £500 for 18.5 squared meters – This works out to £27 per squared meter. When purchasing these Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs we paid £750 for 21 squared meters which works out to just under £36 per squared meter. This means that you should expect to pay approximately £9 per squared meter more for porcelain slabs depending on which slabs you go for, or a price increase of 33%. This might sound like a lot, but porcelain is lower maintenance and much more durable compared to Indian sandstone and well worth the price increase.

The above is just a comparison between the natural sandstone and porcelain paving slabs, but how do they compare to other porcelain paving on the market? Well at £750 for a pack covering 21 squared meters, this was definitely one of the cheaper slabs on the market. Most porcelain is around about the same price but I did see similar ones on the market which were literally double the price! Given that the Kandla Grey purchased was 20mm thick and of a very high quality, I just can’t see why you’d pay double for something else elsewhere!

How easy are the Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs to lay?

It had been a while since I last layed outdoor porcelain tiles since all I ever seem to lay these days are hand split natural stone paving with a riven surface but oh how happy I was to lay these smooth surfaced porcelain paving slabs. I had got so use to laying slabs with an uneven surface that I had forgotten just how easy porcelain was to lay. Honestly I could use the longest spirit level and place it in all directions and you’d see nothing but a flush finish all the way through.

Remembering that I purchased these outdoor porcelain tiles as Nova Gris porcelain, as soon as I saw them labelled as Kandla Grey (Vitoria Grey) on the pallet I won’t lie – I was secretly worried. I instantly thought to myself “Kandla Grey is a sandstone, are these porcelain imitations going to have a riven surface?”. Upon first glance they even looked like that had a riven surface! But to my surprise that were as smooth as any other porcelain to the touch.

What makes these porcelain paving slabs so easy to lay is that they have a depth of 20mm which meant that we could lay them as we would any other paving (with the addition of slurry etc). Not only this but since they are machine made, each porcelain tile is the exact same size from one to the next making them perfect for using spacers. When laying sawn edged natural paving, despite the machine cut edge, each slab still doesn’t match up perfectly like the porcelain do.

What do I think about the appearance of the Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs?

Given that I believe the Kandla Grey to be one of the most popular natural sandstone paving on the market, so much so that they’ve created a porcelain version, to me is just fantastic. You have the looks of a natural sandstone paving but without the maintenance needed!

The Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs (also known as Nova Gris and Vitoria Grey) look like they have a natural riven surface but are in fact as smooth as your kitchen tiles. They are a very light grey porcelain with the sun bouncing off them on a sunny day and have an amazing shine, especially when wet. These have to be the nicest porcelain outdoor tiles we have layed yet and look so much better than your natural stone that they are more than worth the money.

My overall thoughts of the Kandla Grey porcelain paving slabs

What more can I say other than I just love these outdoor porcelain paving slabs – I wish I could think of some flaws but other than the fact that different suppliers offer them under different names (Nova Gris and Vitoria Grey) making it harder to compare prices, I can’t actually fault the slabs themselves even if I tried!

We purchased the 900x450mm slabs for this job but they are also available in 900x600mm although other sizes may be a possibility. Each slab was the exact size to the next making them extremely easy to lay and just like natural stone, each tile had it’s own unique riven pattern.

They are also vitrified which means that they have been made from the purest of kaolin clays and minerals and fired to 1200 degrees Celsius. This makes them extremely durable with a low water absorption rate of less than 0.5% making them less likely to suffer from moss and algae, in return making a very low maintenance porcelain tile and if that’s not enough – Do you have children and worry about slipping hazards? Don’t worry too much as the Kandla Grey paving slabs are also non slip!

Given the competitive price of £750 for a coverage of 21 squared meters working out to approximately £36 per squared meter and with each slab having a depth of 20mm, this makes for an extremely well priced outdoor porcelain tile to which I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone!