Porcelain or faience - what is better for the toilet?

When setting up a bathroom, everyone strives to answer the choice of sanitary equipment - a bath, toilet, bidet, as the quality of the equipment will depend directly onconvenience of hygiene room operation, as well as the duration of the effective operation of the sewage system. One of the most important questions in this process: porcelain or faience - what is better for the toilet? Comparative characteristics, as well as all the pluses, minuses of each material and useful tips for choosing and caring for toilet equipment, you will find in this article.

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The main criteria for choosing a toilet

Before you go to the building store to decide which toilet is better - faience or porcelain, you will have to determine your own requirements for the important characteristics of similar products for bathrooms. The most important selection criteria are:

1. The geometry of the bowl - should be in size and shape convenient for you. Here it is necessary to take into account your body dimensions and style design of the toilet room.
2. Connection principle. In this case it is important that you can connect the bottom of the toilet bowl with the drain of the sewer system. Therefore, you need to know not only the dimensions, but also the location. For example, if the toilet is equipped with a vertical outlet, and the drain pipe is mounted horizontally into the wall, then it will not be possible to perform the connection.
3. Practicality. In this respect, the shape of the bowl is taken into account, or, more accurately, the probability of splashing water during draining. To ensure that the bathroom is always clean, ideally the water should not splash at all.
4. The principle of installation. Regardless of whether the toilet bowl is porcelain or faience - what better to determine, based on the size of your room. For a relatively large bathroom suitable floor models, but a small toilet is better equipped with a hanging cup, as this saves valuable space. You can use it in the future, for example, for the storage of household cleaning chemicals for the toilet.

Important! Rationally refer to the choice of sanitary equipment, given the fact that the more functional, more elaborate in design and stronger the bowl, the more expensive it will cost you.

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Porcelain or faience - which is better for the

toilet bowl Once you have specified the preferred bowl sizes, shape, installation and connection, you can decide which toilet bowl is better - porcelain or faience, to finally determine the suitable model for you. To do this, we only need to understand the features of the manufacture of each material, its advantages and disadvantages.

Earthenware

Earthenware is produced from white clay, which gives the finished product a dense, fine-porous structure. To level a sufficiently high coefficient of water absorption, the surface of the product is opened layer by layer with a special glaze. It is due to the glaze that not only the lifetime of plumbing, its strength characteristics is significantly increased, but a more attractive appearance is achieved, since the toilet is obtained glossy.

Pros:

1. Compact size and light weight, as the walls of the faience toilet bowls are very thin.
2. Optimal reliability.
3. Good resistance to aggressive chemicals and moisture.
4. Low price.

Disadvantages:

1. Strength and moisture resistance directly depend on the quality of the glaze used by the manufacturer.
2. The products of famous import brands can do even more than domestic counterparts from porcelain.

Important! Based on these characteristics, we can conclude that if you choose porcelain or faience - which is better for a toilet in a limited budget, the faience plumbing cup from the domestic manufacturer will be the ideal solution.

Porcelain

Porcelain is also made on the basis of white clay, but to it are added strengthening minerals - feldspar and quartz. And the clay base itself has a higher quality class. As a result, an ultra-smooth, dense material surface is obtained.

Important! Due to the wider component composition, a much lower water absorption coefficient is achieved. For comparison: if faience is 0.5%, then porcelain is only 0.05%.

Advantages:

1. High mechanical strength.
2. Resistance to dirt, due to the density of the structure.
3. Care of the toilet from porcelain is much easier and easier.
4. Unpleasant smells of sewerage when installing such plumbing are much less likely.

Disadvantages:

1. High price, but it fully corresponds to the quality class.
2. As the surface is also opened with glaze, the appearance does not differ much from the faience analogues. As a result, unscrupulous suppliers can issue models of sanitary ware from faience for more expensive porcelain products.

Important! Concerning durability, porcelain is more interesting, since such a toilet bowl has a minimum service life of 50 years, while high-quality faience will last for a maximum of 30 years.

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Manufacturers

As soon as you figure out which toilet is better for you - china or faience, you have to decide with the manufacturer. In order not to buy a fake, give preference to the brand, whose reliability is confirmed by numerous consumer feedback and quality certificates.

On the advantageous side, such trademarks have proven themselves:

1. Iddis - offers budget models of toilet bowls and various sanitary ware with a rather attractive appearance and good technical characteristics.
2. Sanita is a manufacturer of inexpensive sanitary ware, the quality of which does not cause any doubts or claims.
3. Gustavsberg - toilet bowls of this manufacturer will cost you a bit more expensive than the products of the 2 previous brands, but the class of goods is an order of magnitude higher.
4. Jika - purchase the plumbing of this brand is beneficial from the point of view that the company offers the widest range of models: from the most budget to elite. The design corresponds to all fashion trends, is executed in different styles, and the quality of materials is impeccable.

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Useful advices:

1. If you are considering other material variants:
   • The most interesting is the purchase of a toilet bowl made of composite polymer concrete. Such models look very luxurious and exquisite, and the strength characteristics correspond to the highest values.
   • Glass looks interesting and adds a special flavor to the interior, but requires special care.
   • Stainless steel - strong and durable, easy to clean, but such plumbing is more suitable for public places, since the appearance is too utilitarian, and the price is high.
   • Natural stone in plumbing looks very elegant and expensive, but such products will be very expensive and not always practical. For example, toilet bowls made of natural stone are undesirable to wash with aggressive household chemicals, but only with soft, specially designed for this purpose means.
2. If you have bought a toilet bowl made of porcelain or faience and immediately thought about how to clean it, to maintain strength and attractive appearance for as long as possible, use one of the effective and safe folk remedies:
   • Citric acid. Plaque lime and rust can easily remove the crystals of citric acid. To do this, it is enough to rinse the bowl with water, pour a powder of 2-3 bags onto the surface, leave for a couple of hours and then rinse thoroughly with a brush. Plaque all come down.
   • Vinegar + soda. These 2 substances in combination are often used to clean a wide variety of surfaces. Including excellent cope with the pollution on the toilet. To apply such simple and accessible to each substance, pour onto a soiled or lime-coated surface of faience or porcelain with soda powder. Next - sprinkle it with vinegar, it's more convenient to do it from a spray. Leave everything in this form for 30-40 minutes and carefully brush with a brush.

Now you have information about what characteristics each type of sanitary ceramics possesses, it means - it will be much easier for you to make a decision, porcelain or faience - which is better for a toilet bowl.