What a tiled surface asks you to clean

One square metre of this range holds between 2.50 and 88.65 metres of joint, and nothing decides which except the size of the unit — a factor of 35.5. How to compare tile scale counts the same range in units and hands this part over: the 300 × 600 mm page, it says, takes the count further into what it means for the joints, and the scale page stops at the units.

This page picks up the joints. Nothing below is a cleaning method — it is the length of line a surface will hold, and what the site already records about the face on either side of it, both readable on a product page before anything is ordered. Every count below was read on 28 August 2026.

The length of joint in a square metre is set by the unit

For a rectangular unit of w × h millimetres, laid so that every edge meets a neighbour, one square metre holds 1000/w + 1000/h metres of joint. Every tile shares all four edges with its neighbours, so each is charged with one long side and one short side; multiply by the tiles in a square metre and the tile area cancels out.

Two things follow. The result does not depend on the pattern: a stack bond, a half offset and a herringbone of the same unit give the same total, because the same edges are still meeting — an offset moves the lines, it does not add metres of them. And every figure here is gross: a centre-line length, no width given to the joint, no allowance for cuts.

From 16.67 metres to 2.50 metres across the five field formats

The range states five field-tile formats. In metres of joint per square metre:

• 75 × 300 mm — 16.67 m, stated on nine tiles;
• 100 × 300 mm — 13.33 m, on two;
• 300 × 600 mm — 5.00 m, on nineteen;
• 600 × 600 mm — 3.33 m, on thirty-four;
• 600 × 1200 mm — 2.50 m, on twelve.

Those five cover the forty-eight tiles that are not mosaic sheets, and twenty-eight of the forty-eight are made in two of the five, which is why the counts add to seventy-six. The same wall in the smallest carries five times the joint of 600 × 600 mm and six and two-thirds times 600 × 1200 mm.

Twice as many joints is not twice as much joint

The 300 × 600 mm tiles page already makes the point for one format. It says the format asks back roughly twice as many joints per square metre as a 600 mm square, so the grout colour stops being a detail and becomes part of the pattern.

Counted as joints that is exact rather than roughly: joints track the tile count at two per tile, and a square metre holds 5.6 tiles at 300 × 600 mm against 2.8 at 600 × 600 mm. Measured as length the change is smaller. Halving the square along one axis adds only the line that bisects it — 600 mm for each of the 2.8 squares, 1.67 m on top of the 3.33 m already there. Half again, not double.

Both are true of the same floor. Which one matters depends on whether you are counting the lines the grout colour will draw, or the metres of them a cloth has to follow.

Seven of the twelve mosaic sheets state a piece size in two dimensions

On a mosaic the unit that repeats is the chip, not the sheet. Mosaic tiles lists twelve, ten of them state a piece size, and seven state it in two dimensions. Those seven are the ones the arithmetic can be run on:

• 12.8 × 95 mm — 88.65 m per square metre, on Studio White Finger Mosaic Tile;
• 21.5 × 71.5 mm — 60.50 m, on Carrara Herringbone and Studio White Herringbone;
• 20 × 145 mm — 56.90 m, on Carrara White Strip and Studio Graphite Strip;
• 30 × 60 mm — 50.00 m, on Carrara Petite Herringbone;
• 36 × 150 mm — 34.44 m, on Carrara Stack.

Five sheets the formula cannot take, and the joint between sheets no page states

Carrara Hexagon and Carrara Square state a sheet size and no piece size at all. Carrara Round, Carrara Fan and Carrara Large Hexagon each state one figure — 20 mm, 75 mm and 70 mm hexagon — and the missing dimension is the smaller problem, because none of the three is a rectangle meeting edge to edge.

The penny round mosaic tiles page states the direction for the round one: circles do not tessellate, and between every four of them sits a small concave gap, so a penny round surface carries more grout for its area than a square chip does. Which way it runs is on the page; how far is not, and this page will not invent a figure.

These figures count joints between chips only. The joint where one sheet meets the next is not a published dimension on any of these pages, and it is the one the site describes as still open — the mosaic page records that the spacing inside a sheet is set in the factory and cannot be opened or closed on the wall.

More pieces do not mean more joint

Piece count looks like the obvious proxy, and the range holds a pair that breaks it. Carrara Petite Herringbone repeats a 30 × 60 mm chip, 555.6 to a square metre; Carrara White Strip a 20 × 145 mm chip, 344.8 to a square metre. The petite herringbone has just over one and a half times as many pieces and 6.9 m less joint: 50.00 m against 56.90 m. The shape of the piece is the measure, not the number of them — for a given chip area, the closer to square, the less joint it draws.

What the site already records about the face

The joint is one of the two things being cleaned. The other is the tile face, and three collection pages already state what each kind of face does with a mark — each written about that kind of face generally, rather than about the particular tiles it lists.

• Gloss finish tiles calls gloss the finish you keep wiping: on gloss generally, fingerprints and water spots read at a glancing angle after wiping;
• Matt finish tiles puts the other side: with no reflection to carry a smear, marks on matt generally read less than on a glazed face, and the room keeps less of its own daylight;
• Rough finish tiles describes a third behaviour — on a textured surface generally a mop drags and dirt sits in the low points.

The narrowest of the three is on black tiles, which holds two and says a black glaze shows a fingerprint the way a pale gloss never does. Both are recorded at 75 × 300 mm, the format at the top of the joint list.

The ways this range writes a finish sets out how those finish words are recorded before any page describes what they do.

Where the two line up, and the tiles this does not reach

Each of those pages already names the formats its own members carry. What none of them does is set the finish beside the metres of joint that format draws. Read on 28 August 2026, they lean one way.

• Thirteen of the fourteen gloss tiles state only formats at 13.33 m or above, four of them mosaic sheets between 56.90 m and 88.65 m; the fourteenth is a 300 × 600 mm wall tile at 5.00 m.
• Twenty-three of the twenty-seven matt tiles fall between 2.50 m and 5.00 m; of the other four, two are sheets with no piece size to calculate from.
• All five rough tiles sit between 3.33 m and 5.00 m.

Forty-six collection places cover forty-four tiles, not sixty

The three counts above are forty-six collection places but forty-four tiles — the matt page says so itself, two of its twenty-seven carrying both matt and rough — and forty-four is not sixty. Sixteen are in none of the three. Ten are soft polished, three of them shapes the formula cannot take. Three are honed: the texture-and-honed Atlas pair at 3.33 m and 2.50 m, the lowest figures in the range, on a face the rough page would put at the harder end, plus one marble-look tile. Three are in no finish collection at all: the 75 × 300 mm subway whose page carries no Finish row, Carrara Petite Herringbone at 50.00 m, and one fluted marble-look tile.

So among the forty-four the site has classified, the face it says you keep wiping is mostly carried on the units that draw the most line, and the face that hides a mark mostly on those that draw the least. That is one range on one date, not a rule about finishes: a gloss 600 × 1200 mm tile would break it, and this range does not hold one.

Five tiles are recorded as marble, and none records a care method

Across the sixty the Material row reads Porcelain twenty-five times, Ceramic sixteen, Marble five and Not specified fourteen; What to confirm before choosing works through that row and its source. All five marble records are mosaic sheets, the five marble tiles lists. Four other sheets carrying the Carrara name are recorded as three Ceramic and one Porcelain, so read the row rather than the product name.

The marble page records the material from the supplier's current documentation and notes that the quarry is not recorded. The soft polished finish tiles page now holds ten, four of them the same five, and uses the same supplier-document attribution. Neither page records a care method or sealing method, so those product-specific questions still have to be asked rather than inferred.

Acid, etch, porous, stain and sealant appear on none of the sixty

Marble is a natural stone, and stone surfaces are generally sensitive to acidic cleaners in a way a glazed ceramic face is not. That is a property of the material, recorded nowhere on these pages. What the pages record is one sentence, identical on all sixty: use a qualified tiler and confirm the substrate, adhesive, grout, movement joints, sealing and care method for the exact tile before work begins. Acid, etch, porous, stain and sealant appear on none of them. The nearest the site comes to an answer is the FAQ — some materials and finishes may need sealing and others may not, so confirm the requirement for the exact tile rather than assuming it from appearance.

Reading a product page for the joint it commits you to

1. take the face size, or on a mosaic the piece size, as the unit that repeats, and put it through 1000/w + 1000/h;
2. check for a second format: twenty-eight of the forty-eight field tiles are made in two, eighteen of them pairing 300 × 600 mm with 600 × 600 mm — half again more joint in the shorter one, same tile;
3. on a mosaic, check whether a piece size is stated in two dimensions at all; five of the twelve state none the formula can take;
4. read the finish row for what the face does with a mark, taking the collection statements as being about that kind of face generally — three of the sixty carry no finish the site has classified;
5. where the Material row reads Marble, treat the care method as unrecorded and ask.

One question people ask

Which rows on a product page bear on cleaning?

Three rows and one absence. The Size row fixes the joint length, which is the geometry above. The Finish row names the face: gloss returns light and shows a mark as a reflection, matt diffuses it, and a face recorded as rough has low points in it. The Material row, where it reads natural marble, means the care method is unrecorded here and is a question for the installer. The absence is the care row itself: no product page on this site records a cleaning method, a sealer or a maintenance interval, and this guide does not supply one. What the rows give you is what you will be looking at; what it takes to keep it that way is not on the page.

The lengths are calculated, and none of them is a care instruction

Every dimension above was read from the sixty product pages on 28 August 2026, and every collection count from the collection page the same day; the lengths are calculated from those dimensions and are gross throughout. Documentation changes, so check the size stated for the tile you have chosen. Nothing above is a cleaning method or a grout specification — the one general remark about stone is a property of the material, not a care instruction recorded on these pages. Confirm the care method, and the rest of the specification, with the responsible installer or specifier before the order goes in.

Next step — the count this page started from. How to compare tile scale works out what one square metre holds in units for each of the five field-tile formats, with the nine mosaic sheet sizes as a range.

Where this guide sits: Where to start sets out the order the guides follow.