Porcelain, ceramic or natural stone: which tile is right for a desert home?

Both are fired clay, but porcelain is made from finer clay pressed harder and fired hotter, which makes it denser. The industry definition is water absorption: porcelain absorbs 0.5 percent or less of its weight in water; ceramic absorbs more. That one number explains most of the practical differences — porcelain is harder to scratch, harder to cut, better outdoors and in showers, and usually more expensive.

Ceramic is lighter, easier to cut and cheaper, and on a wall or a backsplash none of porcelain's advantages matter much. On a floor that sees sand tracked in from the yard, porcelain's hardness does.

Three reasons. Desert sand is abrasive and porcelain's glaze and body resist it. Slab-on-grade homes move and porcelain handles the stress better than softer tile when it's installed over a membrane. And the wood, stone and concrete looks everyone wants are printed on porcelain now with enough realism that most guests can't tell.

Large-format porcelain — 24×48 and bigger — is the dominant floor in new construction from La Quinta to Indio. It needs a flatter slab and a stricter installation than small tile, which is where the installer matters more than the tile.

When the look of real stone is the point: a marble primary bath, a travertine entry, a limestone patio that stays cool underfoot. Stone has depth and variation that porcelain imitates but never quite reaches, and in the valley's older estates it is what the house was built with.

The trade is maintenance. Every stone needs a penetrating sealer after installation and again every year or two. Marble and limestone etch from anything acidic — lemon, vinegar, many cleaners — and travertine has natural holes that need filling. Quartzite and dense granite are the toughest; honed finishes hide wear better than polished.

• Quartzite and dense marble: floors, showers, high-traffic rooms
• Travertine and limestone, honed: entries, patios, pool decks (they stay cooler than porcelain)
• Softer marbles and limestones: walls, fireplace surrounds, low-traffic baths
• Slate: outdoor steps and rustic floors; cleft surfaces are uneven by design

Porcelain pavers rated for exterior use, or light-colored honed stone. The enemy isn't frost — it's a slab that cycles from 60 degrees at dawn to 150 in the afternoon sun. Porcelain doesn't absorb water, doesn't fade and comes in slip-rated finishes; light stone stays cooler to walk on. Dark tile of any kind gets too hot for bare feet.

Ceramic is the least expensive to buy and install. Porcelain costs more per square foot and more to cut, especially large formats. Natural stone costs the most on both counts: the material, the white mortar, the dry layout, the sealing and the slower setting all add labor. On most jobs the installation is a larger share of the total than the tile, so a cheaper tile installed badly is still an expensive floor.