bought floor tiles but given ceramic instead of porcelain

[tifo]

I recently bought some floor tiles for the conservatory.

 

The shop sold them to me as porcelain and i had them installed. Then a friend came along next day and said why have you had ceramic put in when you were after quartz or porcelain and i replied 'they are porcelain'. The installer then also said they were ceramic but never questioned it as his job is to install only.

 

I paid around £31.00 per square metre which i thought was for porcelain tiles because they were on offer. I bought 12 sqm, plus underfloor heating and the adhesive and grout. Total spend £700 after a small discount of £36.

 

The retailer still insists they are porcelain but i have had them looked at and they are definately ceramic, which i did not want. He says they only 'look' like ceramic.

 

I paid by Visa debit.

 

Do i have a claim against the retailer for giving me something else other than what was said to me? It would cost me a lot to buy porcelain tiles and have them installed with underfloor heating etc, plus the money i paid in the first place.

 

Having looked on the net, some retailers call them ceramic and some porcelain (which is still ceramic after all).

 

You can tell i don't know much about tiles ....

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Have you considered a complaint via your local trading standards department

[tifo]

i haven't done anything yet, i was wondering if i COULD do anything.

 

at the end of the day, the shop could deny and say they just sold me an expensive ceramic tile and that's not against the law.

 

but with them insisting it is porcelain when clearly it is not does give me a strong case.

 

apart from TS, could i have a claim from the bank under the Visa chargeback scheme? I have a paid for account so probably get a bit more protection.

[perplexity]

What do you intend to show, to demonstrate the significance of a difference between "porcelain" and "ceramic"?

 

Porcelain is a ceramic material, so the argument bewilders. It's the quality of material that would worry me, not the name they're called.

 

[tifo]

yes, i'm on about the quality.

 

porcelain is more hard wearing etc and costs more to buy.

 

i was told it was a porcelain tile so i paid a premium for the quality.

 

it then turns out to be ceramic (terracotta base) which is usually much cheaper. So i didn't get the quality i paid for. I did not want ceramic tiles, i made it clear to the shop, that's why i was going for quartz ones but they were a bit too much (£75 per sqm in shop but down to £40 - £53 online) so i settled for porcelain (or so i thought).

[perplexity]

I am guessing that the upshot of this is that what you've got has a terracotta base glazed with some sort of porcelain, which could be difficult to make out a case against for want of a British Standard or some other benchmark

 

The same sort of sharp practice happens with "wood" which turns out to be veneered chipboard, but they get away with it .

 

[Conniff]

What does it say on the boxes they came in?