An Ecological Basis for Selecting Ceramic Tile

Definitions of sustainable design and green building are hardly stagnant. Every year, as the architectural profession and industrial leaders learn more about building performance, environmental challenges, and the effects of our choices on people and the planet, we add to the body of knowledge on sustainability. In this way, our standards and definitions change accordingly, hopefully getting more “ecological.”

While green building tends toward many novel solutions—building integrated photovoltaics (PV), for example—the recent evolution of green thinking is playing into the hands of architects who favor time-tested and even traditional building methods. This includes niche products—rammed-earth and straw bale construction leap to mind—but also classic materials and systems including natural ventilation, brick masonry, and ceramic tile. Even the traditional manufacturing centers, such as the tile-making operations clustered in Castellón near Valencia, Spain, showcase long-established methods for more efficient construction material production.

Yet there are other changes in green building that are shifting attention to long-standing construction methods and materials. The emphasis on a more comprehensive approach to the evaluation of materials, including life-cycle analysis (LCA), is just one trend, but perhaps the most significant. Related to this is a growing language among practitioners in understanding material durability and flexibility, also called functional resilience or simply resilience. A second is the emphasis on indoor environmental quality (IEQ), which tends to favor nontoxic and inert building products, which emit fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as finishes that physically comfort or safeguard occupants. In addition, interest in the better ways to address ongoing repair and maintenance in the use phase of buildings, when most of the energy and environmental impact is felt, is a contributing factor to these revived approaches.

Interest in promulgating better standards and codes for green building is also helping expand the use of long-established and time-honored construction techniques.

One of the materials of particular focus today is ceramic tile, which is seeing a surge in green applications according to trade groups such as Tile of Spain. With surviving examples of its use in construction dating to column claddings in ancient Mesopotamia as early as 900 B.C., ceramic tile is certainly a deeply established, proven construction approach. New findings from the last decade or two, however, have added modern evidence of its vital benefits for green building.

While the cone-shaped tiles used in Mesopotamia served as elements of column structures, over the years ceramic panels and various setting techniques have been used for interior surfaces, special occupancies (such as healthcare), and outdoor uses including paving and building cladding.

Interior wall covering and flooring dominates the interior use of ceramic tile and its market dynamic overall. From mosaic tile to subway tiles to large-format, modern ceramic panels, properly installed ceramics provide a strong and lasting finish.

Tile's resistance to water, moisture, and bacteria—thanks to ceramic tile's dense composition and often glazed finishes—has encouraged its use in wet locations such as lobbies, foodservice areas, kitchens, restrooms, gymnasiums, hospitals, natatoriums, and more. Studies of microbiological growth show that ceramic and porcelain tile actually reduce bacteria, mold, and mildew in these areas when properly installed.

The inherent strength of tile surfaces has also opened doors for reuse opportunities. One of the most valuable in recent years is the advent of slim porcelain and ceramic tiles, which range from 3mm to 7mm in depth, some of which are even suitable for flooring installations for tile-over-tile retrofits using the original tile as a substrate. In addition to saving project time and cost, this technique obviates both the heavy tile construction waste as well as the need for new virgin or recycled materials for use in replacing the subfloor. The tile surface is stable and strong enough for point loads as well as typical environmental variations.

As flooring, ceramic tile offers a very resilient and protective finish, making it ideal for high-traffic zones, places where long-term aesthetics are important, and specialty interiors, such as healthcare settings, where cleanability and hygiene are concerns. In locations with direct ultraviolet (UV) exposure from sunlight and the potential for reconfiguration, tile demonstrates its resilience, durability, and flexibility. “Because ceramic tile will not fade due to UV light, the reconfiguration of spaces is much easier since furniture, rugs, or even cosmetic interior walls can be moved without the worry of light and dark patches of flooring,” says Ryan Fasan, a consultant to the Coral Gables, Florida-based trade group, Tile of Spain.

The inherent durability of porcelain and ceramic tile has attracted sustainable design adherents to their use in high-traffic, high-use areas. Novel tile designs that mimic wood and stone finishes offer the look of another natural surface with today's expected engineered performance. Other finishes may have a lower initial cost, but a tile installation can be amortized over a very long lifespan. An LCA study by the Tile Council of North America (TCNA) comparing popular finish materials showed ceramic tile to be the lowest cost option for timeframes up to 40 years.

Another factor is thermal comfort (TC), according to Fasan, which has become an important buzzword in terms of occupant health and safety. Defined as the perceived warmth or coolness of a space, TC can be achieved using methods with low energy costs, or no energy cost at all, such as tile finishes. For example, studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that subfloor radiant heating in combination with hard, dense surfaces like ceramic tile tend to be among the most efficient ways to heat a space. Where geothermal power can be incorporated, both heating and cooling can be easily achieved with lower operating costs.

Studies of TC in commercial and residential interiors have also shown that thermostats are set an average of 2 degrees lower in areas of bare foot traffic when flooring feels warmer or cooler than the ambient room temperature. In addition to these long-term green solutions, ceramic and porcelain tile add thermal mass to the building assembly, which further stabilizes IEQ and energy draw through weather swings and occupancy changes.

Thermal mass is especially effective as part of the building exterior, and ceramic and porcelain tile offer longstanding uses as a finish for outdoor areas. According to the Glen Ellyn, Illinois-based Ceramic Tile Distributors Association (CTDA), many ceramic tiles are frost resistant and can be used in both exteriors and interiors, while other materials quickly degrade in the outdoors. This offers design continuity, for example, where an interior floor material continues outdoors to a balcony, patio or terrace.

While outdoor uses such as paving, base, and wall finish—in addition to interlocking tile roofs—offer literally centuries of demonstrated effectiveness, recent design concepts bring tile panels into high-performance, engineered assemblies.

Most noteworthy are the cutting-edge façade and cladding applications using ceramic tile and porcelain tile, which are increasingly popular. These ventilated enclosure systems have been favored by architects and engineers due to their redundant nature and ability to provide continuous, protected insulation layers and air/moisture barriers. The result, say experts such as Avellaneda and Gonzalez at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, improves the “energy efficiency, occupant comfort, and acoustical performance” of the enclosure.

Overcladding with rainscreens is an effective retrofit approach for many buildings, according to architects like Mark Sealy, AIA, LEED AP, a principal with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm BJAC, “allowing the addition of thermal insulation for the building envelope,” he explains. “Rather than potential costly exterior wall deconstruction, repair, or replacement, existing buildings with moisture infiltration may benefit by sealing the existing exterior and adding a rainscreen.”

Aesthetics matter too, and ceramic tile is one of a small number of cladding materials rendered in color that is unaffected by exposure to sunlight. Beyond its durability, ceramic and porcelain tile in light colors can reduce a building's heat load and contribution to urban heat-island effects, which increase local ambient temperatures. These performance factors further build a case for using tile enclosures.

These cumulative environmental benefits and performance capabilities offer compelling reasons to use ceramic tile and porcelain tile. However many building materials lend some advantages in green building, so it is useful to compare the attributes of varied assemblies, materials, and finishes to determine which best meets the sustainability needs of any given project.

“LCA is becoming one of the most valuable tools for green design professionals to utilize when selecting material finishes,” says Fasan. “Unfortunately it has been difficult to assess competitive materials simultaneously on embodied energy, maintenance, replacement frequency, costs, and aesthetics to create an even playing field.” Fasan points to the use of reference service life (RSL), also known as RCA, to rank disparate LCA studies on competitive materials. RSL allows design professionals to ensure a building project or material will have an estimated service life that meets or exceeds its design life. This means fewer premature renovations or repairs.

Ceramic tile fares well in RSL analysis, which amortizes the embodied energy and virgin resource usage of ceramic tile over an appropriate building lifespan. As a result, studies demonstrate it as one of the most efficient choices available. In the context of functional resilience, tile also delivers resistance to both daily wear-and-tear and exceptional instances such as hurricanes, flooding, and other weather disasters. This addresses the concerns of groups like the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), a national association representing the insurance and re-insurance industries. IBHS has developed a program called FORTIFIED®, which focuses on the need for more durable, disaster-resistant construction methods, according to the Portland Cement Association (PCA).

Functional resilience is hardly limited to disaster resistance, says the group. Add to it product robustness, longevity, and durability, and the result is less energy needed for product “repair, removal, disposal, and replacement of building materials and contents due to routine maintenance and operations, as well as disasters,” says PCA. “Functionally resilient buildings create safe, secure, comfortable, and productive environments.”

The fact is that ceramic tile is not only green by the current definition but a truly sustainable building material that has protected buildings and their occupants for millennia. The material's ability to survive in-situ for the life of the building is the main criterion; as a secondary factor, the material must be both cost-effective and resource-effective to produce, install, and maintain.

The environmental basis for comparing building finish materials may include owner and occupant preferences, the design team's prerogatives, and industry standards. While LEED is among the most common standards used, today there are others including the International Green Construction Code, introduced in early 2012, and state and regional codes including California's CalGreen, which went into effect in that state in January 2011.

The primary focus of LEED is to alleviate major environmental burdens regarding energy and water consumption along with methods for reducing waste and improving occupant health. The six main areas in the certification system for tallying the benefits of ceramic tile include: salvage and reuse; construction waste management; recycled content; regional materials; rapidly renewable materials; and low-emitting materials. Yet there are other critical benefits supported by ceramic tile.

Specific opportunities for evaluating the potential use of ceramic tile can be found in the various LEED categories:

Indoor Environmental Quality
Inert Is In

In early versions of LEED, credit opportunities reflected the makeup of the constituencies involved in creating the certification system. Carpet manufacturers, actively involved in the program, worked to reward building projects that employed carpets with low VOC content. The credit originally known as Low Emitting Materials – Carpet Systems, was eventually revised to cover all types of flooring,

The credit Credit 4.3 Low-Emitting Materials—Flooring Systems addresses IEQ by offering three compliance paths: First, by meeting green label programs such as FloorScore or VOC limits set in IEQ credit 4.1; second, by meeting the California Department of Health Services' test protocol for VOCs; or third, not exceed LEED-listed maximum emissions levels based on determinations using the ICC Evaluation Service guideline. In this latter option, tile-setting adhesives and grout must not exceed VOC limits in LEED addressing adhesives and sealants.

For this reason, green specs for ceramic and porcelain tile must carefully adhere to IEQ credit 4.1, Low Emitting Materials – Sealants and Adhesives. Ceramic tile adhesives must have a VOC limit of 65 grams per liter (g/L), less water. This applies to all adhesives and sealants for ceramic tile assemblies used on the interior of the building – in other words, “inside of the weatherproofing system and applied on site.” The level of VOC content reflects California's South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) Rule #1168, which for years has been the most advanced criterion for VOC content and emissions.

In spite of these strict rules, many green building practitioners ask why we use products with any VOCs at all if they can be avoided entirely? As Charlottesville, Virginia-based environmental advisor and architect William McDonough has frequently admonished, “less bad” isn't better. “While emerging 'green' codes have created considerable improvements in the environmental performance of new buildings, they are still the product of a consensus-based exercise largely focused on trying to be 'less bad,'” he wrote in Perspecta in 2004. They are trying to “minimize the impact of the old industrial system by making it more efficient. This yields both low standards and flawed designs.”

Today's more advanced thinking includes adherence to the “Precautionary Principle,” established in the 1992 Rio Conference, in which designers avoid “substances that are known or suspected to be associated with an adverse finding in relation to human and environmental health.” In the European Union, this principle—which requires the party taking an action suspected of causing harm to the public or environment—bear the burden of proof for proving it is safe.

The architecture firm Perkins+Will, for example, released in August of this year a report listing 374 known asthmagens in the built environment as part of its “Transparency Project,” which calls for more information on constituent material so that firms can more easily create healthier buildings. “It's a largely opaque market,” Peter Syrett, a senior designer for Perkins+Will who led the report's development, recently told Forbes. We don't know “what a product is made of unless the manufacturer tells you, and only a handful of them do,” he added.

Fortunately, an addendum to the LEED IEQ credit 4.3 added in April 2010 qualified ceramic tile for an exemption from the VOC testing requirement, along with other “mineral-based finish flooring products.” Using ceramic tile, architects can apply for this credit without third-party certification.

Materials & Resources
Reduce and Reuse

These credit areas reward the diverting of waste from one-way trips to landfills. The Materials & Resources (MR) credits are given for recycled content, including all post-consumer and 50 percent of pre-consumer material that would otherwise add to landfills. Other credit categories are for rapidly renewable materials and the reuse of construction materials.

Ceramic tile holds high potential for salvage or reuse, as outlined in MR Credit 1.2: Building Reuse – Maintain Interior Nonstructural Elements. Yet ceramic tile can also be preserved in situ, contributing further to MR Credit 1.1: Building Reuse—Maintain Existing Walls, Floors and Roof. For MR 1.1, reusing 55 percent of the total earns one point; a 75 percent reuse gets 2 points; for 95 percent it is 3 points. (If the project includes an addition more than twice the floor area of the existing building, however, the credit may not apply.)

The intent of both credits goes beyond reducing waste and the global impacts of using new building materials. According to the USGBC, they also “extend the life cycle of existing building stock, retain cultural resources,” and even reduce associated transport impacts. The resilience and integrity of structural floors and exterior walls with ceramic tile finishes or cladding tends to make them good candidates for reuse, according to Atlanta-based green building consultant Carl Seville. Options include refinishing in place, refurbishment and grinding the tiles for use as gravel.

“Because quality ceramic tile is extremely durable, it outlasts most other types of flooring,” says Tile of Spain's Fasan. “This enables the salvage of even antique and historic installations.” Fasan adds that the potential reuse of a ceramic tile floor system, rather than premature replacement, can slash the costs and scope of renovations initiated by flood or fire insurance claims. “Ceramic tile is one of the only materials which can survive these disasters,” she says, enhancing its functional resilience. Wood, carpet, linoleum, rubber and other common flooring types may need complete removal after water or smoke damage.

Ceramic tile performance in these situations, on the other hand, is good news for MR 1.2, which encourages the use of existing interior nonstructural elements—including walls, doors, floor coverings, and ceiling systems—in at least 50 percent (by area) of the completed building, including additions, as calculated by area. Here again, projects with large additions won't qualify for the credit, and any building elements that are inefficient in terms of energy and water consumption or that pose a contamination risk to building occupants should be removed.

For MR 3, which rewards other kinds of reuse, ceramic tile can play a role as an inert, safe and clean fill material that has been used for hundreds of years as road base, backfill, aggregate and as added material for the regrading of sites. Other types of flooring may also be suitable as fill, though not carpet, linoleum or wood plank.

These credits are also ideal opportunities to take advantage of tile-over-tile applications with thin porcelain floor tiles over original ceramic tile surfaces. Other flooring systems may allow for similar overlayment; the key is a stable, smooth and compatible substrate to accept the new adhesives, backing and material layer.

In addition, the overcladding of building exteriors with rainscreen systems has led to more ventilated porcelain-tile façade systems retrofitted over original exteriors, including masonry and glass-and-steel enclosures.

Materials & Resources
Recycled and Rapidly Renewable

As for recycled content, there is traditionally a small amount of post-consumer material used in typical ceramic tile manufacturing, including post-consumer glass and remilled waste from fired tile—a product called chamotte. One reason these waste streams are employed is to enhance the technical or aesthetic value of the tiles. Yet the process tolerances are high—ceramic tile requires high-grade component resources to achieve its high level of performance in terms of resilience, compressive strength, scratch resistance, and the like. Another reason is that tile is traditionally seen as a long-term installation—lasting decades, as opposed to the several years commonly associated with carpeting, for example.

The real benefit for a closed-loop cycle comes from the efficient manufacturing processes developed in Spain and other industrial centers of tile production. To be competitive and protect the environment, tile makers recycle water and post-industrial waste—not only within-the-fence but also among nearby producers in industrial clusters such as in Castellón, Spain. Closed-loop manufacturing processes, used by the vast majority of makers, capture vast amounts of suspended clays and minerals in production water, a residual raw material as good as the virgin source. Waste tiles, such as those broken or at the ends of useful production runs, are sorted and binned for reuse.

Under LEED credits MR 4.1 and MR 4.2, only 50 percent of the preconsumer waste may be applied toward a project's recycled content. Though it can help provide a LEED credit, this “half-off discount” for preconsumer as opposed to postconsumer waste, is a source of ongoing debate among experts in green building. The fact is that any recycled content diverted from the waste stream is of equal value—a point argued in the development of the IGCC (see sidebar “A New Look at Recycling”).

Other ceramic tile manufacturing processes provide for valuable environmental benefits. Typically about 94 percent of the production water is reused. Ceramic tile manufacturers also conserve energy through closed-loop heat recovery and by using solar power as well as cogeneration, in which electricity and useful heat are captured simultaneously. Again, the sharing of energy sources by clustered industrial villages increases the scope of this efficient ecosystem.

Similarly, the benefits of rapidly renewable materials as outlined in MR Credit 6 – Rapidly Renewable Materials, is to “reduce the use and depletion of finite raw materials and long-cycle renewable materials by replacing them with rapidly renewable materials.” While this credit has been explicitly associated with plants such as wood, linseed, cork and bamboo with a short harvesting cycle of less than 10 years, many experts recommend that the credit be expanded to include “perpetual resources”—materials with no reasonable chance of depletion, according to the Environmental Economics Organization.

Examples could include salt, magnesium, the silica (sand) used to make glass and the feldspar and clays used for ceramic tile – materials that have a sufficient renewal rate given the vast reserves available and the installed product lifespan.

Ceramic tile is composed of sand, clay and feldspar; porcelain is made with quartz, kaolinic clay and feldspar. Geologists estimate reserves of these raw materials to be in the billions of tons. They are found on every continent and in many countries and are in no danger of depletion. Ceramic clay and kaolinic clays, proportionally the largest component resources for ceramic tile and porcelain tile, respectively, are not considered a rapidly depleting resource by any authority. “About half of the world's kaolin production is used by the paper industry for coatings and fillers,” says Fasan, adding that only about 15 percent is used for the production of ceramics.

In geological surveys of clay and feldspar reserves, scientists classify the base materials for ceramic tile as perpetual resources, with no potential for significant depletion even with the population growth and increased demand expected for the next 350 years.

Ceramic tile provides additional benefits for green building projects, some of them included in the LEED framework. Under Sustainable Sites (SS), there are two credits for heat-island mitigation applying to roof and non-roof exterior areas. These credits reward the minimizing of surfaces that absorb and retain heat, a reduction beneficial to humans in developed microclimates and to nearby wildlife habitats. The use of light-colored tile on building surfaces and site hardscape areas has a significant capacity to reduce heat islands.

According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, the key measures of a surface's ability to reduce heat built-up are reflectivity and emissivity. Solar reflectance index (SRI) combines both: As defined by the standard ASTM E 1980, SRI describes how well a surface “bounces away” solar radiation and radiates away (or emits) absorbed heat. Light-colored roofing and surfaces tend to have a good SRI; metallic surfaces tend to have low emissivity rates.

Exterior ceramic tile in a light color—with an SRI of at least 29—must cover at least 50 percent of the paved or finished outdoor surfaces, or hardscape, in order to earn the LEED credit. Roofing tiles must achieve a specified SRI over at least three-quarters of the roof surface.

Not only do these ceramic tile surfaces reduce heat-island effect—they also reduce building energy needs for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC). That's one reason ceramic tile is valuable for the Energy & Atmosphere (EA) credits. Another is the use of ventilated porcelain façades, which can reduce building energy use up to 25 percent over comparable enclosure designs, according to Barcelona-based Roca Cerámica, one of Spain's larger tile producers.

Another tile producer, Tau Cerámica of Valencia, Spain, has developed a PV tile façade system with Madrid-based PV company Atersa. The system adds building-integrated PV production to the same ventilated tile rainscreen concept, bringing architects closer to a net-zero-energy solution without requiring a special armature for the PV system. All of the tiles are attached with the same frame system.

The novel, net-zero design approach using BIPV panels is not the only unique tile-related concept that has led to Innovation in Design (ID) credits through the LEED certification system. Other product and system innovations have included ventilated façade systems combining porcelain tiles and vegetated panels.

Even the basic material innovations of recent years—notably the use of simulated wood grains or metal finishes rendered in glazed ceramic tile—provide ways to create attractive, safe, and durable building features. Imagine, for example, a pool deck that looks like a dark grainy maple plank yet is actually composed of large-format ceramic tile. The look is lasting, and the finish choice will last as much as four times longer than the real wood alternative.

In this way, this innovative material selection also directly impacts the product's LCA: While wood planks might have a lower installed first cost, the more durable and lasting surface may provide better life-cycle performance. The better LCA should be a more “ecological” choice.

The goal of LCA studies is to compare all environmental effects of a building material or system choice over the life of the product, from raw resource extraction to reuse or disposal. Yet there are many ways to conduct an LCA and there has been little agreement among various practitioners.

A few baseline protocols do exist, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006 standards ISO 14040 and 14044; the LCAs that follow the ISO protocols are easier to compare against each other. LCAs using other methodologies can be compared by applying the ISO-based LCA methods including inventory analysis and quantitative impact assessment, but this can be time-consuming and expensive.

One important element of the LCA is reference service life, or RSL, which helps to clearly establish a product's complete environmental impact. As outlined in the new ISO standard 15686, RSL is intended to “provide reasonable assurance that the estimated service life of a new building [or assembly] with planned maintenance, will be at least as long as the design,” according to ISO Geneva. An RSL database is compiled from building case studies and extrapolation models to provide architects with the life expectancy of their building or materials under certain conditions, such as climate and uses.

Durability factors heavily into RSL values, says Patti Fasan, a leading educator on tile application and design and longtime collaborator with Tile of Spain. “All relevant impacts are added to the RSL every time a building material is replaced within a normalized time frame—usually the expected life of the building,” she explains.

Another increasingly valued tool for comparing LCA data is the environmental product declaration, or EPD. Similar to nutrition labels on food packaging, an EPD describes component materials and other environmental and manufacturing inputs for a given product or assembly. Based on a cradle-to-grave LCA, the EPD uses an ISO-compliant method to calculate the environmental footprint of the products at each stage of the supply chain, during product use, and at end of use. Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has taken the lead on certifying EPDs in the United States.

“EPDs will be based on LCA data according to ISO 14040, and will be an effective tool for communicating the summary of a product's full environmental story,” says Patti Fasan. “Criteria from product category rules, or PCRs, will set consistent and comparable information for all products within a common category or sector.” Fasan adds that the EPD initiatives will help highlight the “perpetual service life” offered by high-quality ceramic tile installations based on durability criteria set forth by ANSI, ASTM, and ISO.

In addition, multi-attribute LCA standards are expected to become a requirement for manufacturers who make green assertions. Examples include the Green Squared or G2 Standard ANSI A138.1 for environmental ceramic tiles, which was approved and published in late 2011. Written by TCNA, the standard is modeled after well-regarded multi-attribute standards from other industries; it covers porcelain, pressed floor, mosaic, quarry and glazed wall tiles. Green Squared is also “the first sustainable building material standard to encompass the full range of products used in installation,” says Ryan Fasan, including mortar, grout, membranes, backerboards, and other installation materials.

This comprehensive Green Squared standard, created to assist green building professionals in specifying complete ceramic tile systems, sets product criteria beginning at raw material extraction through manufacturing, use phase and end-of-life management.

End-users and green-building professionals alike have grown weary of greenwashing and flimsy environmental claims, and new standards such as the EPDs, ISO 14040 and Green Squared help bring solid intelligence to the architectural space. That is to say, they add a more ecological framework.

In addition to these new references, architects are increasingly taking advantage of the inherent sustainability benefits of porcelain and ceramic tile that go beyond today's typical framework. As discussed in this education unit, they include thermal mass and TC, or thermal comfort, as well as the impermeability of the tile surface, which helps ensure good indoor air quality.

Similarly, ceramic tile is an inorganic and inert material, so it naturally inhibits the growth of mold and other inorganic irritants, while adding zero VOCs to the indoor environment. This makes it ideal for hypoallergenic surfaces in healthcare settings.

New surface technologies for tile go even further: antimicrobial, antifungal, and hydrophilic or self-cleaning glazes improve cleanability of the surfaces and, in places where water is present such as outdoors, rinse organic residue from the tile surfaces. On façades, some tiles now include photocatalytic glazes that are activated by sunlight and water to neutralize atmospheric contaminants like acid rain (nitrogen oxides).

Perhaps the most important aspect, however, is the durability and resilience afforded by well-installed, well-manufactured tile. Certainly there are many tile products on the market with low technology and aesthetic value—every industry has its loss leaders. But when leadership industries like the Spanish tile exporters combine with top-notch specialty contractors, the result is a building finish with dazzling variety and decades of low-maintenance enjoyment.

It truly is an ecological choice—thousands of years of experience prove it's true.

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