Are porcelain pavers strong?

[WWilts]

New build in progress.

Porcelain pavers 20mm thick, 600mm square, on pedestals.

How strong are such pavers? 
Do they need a pedestal at the centre?

Any other tips?

[Russdl]

6 minutes ago, WWilts said:

How strong are such pavers? 

Strong - but not indestructible. 
 

6 minutes ago, WWilts said:

Do they need a pedestal at the centre?

I would say ‘no’ and in all the blurb I’ve seen regarding the pedestal system, I’ve never seen one where they use a central pedestal as well as the corners.
 

Ours are 1200x240x20 they are supported at the corners and mid point at the sides so that means there are two 600x240 bits that are unsupported. These long tiles we have do flex as the central supports are a nats knacker lower than the corner supports (I found it impossible to lay them without them see-sawing otherwise). The flex is almost imperceptible, it’s probably only me who is aware of it. When you stand on the middle of the tile it settles that ‘nats knacker’ on to the pedestal underneath.

 

I have no fear of that unsupported 600mm section either side of the centre supports breaking.
 

Well none of them have yet 🤞🏻

[WWilts]

47 minutes ago, Russdl said:

pedestal underneath

Standard pedestal ok for you (1 ton load bearing)? There are heavy duty pedestals too (2 ton).

[Adsibob]

With the pedestal system. What happens when it rains? I know there are gaps for water instead of grout, but with large tiles (such as the ones @Russdl has), don’t you end up with puddling of water in the middle of the tile? Or are they installed with a fall?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Adsibob

[Russdl]

Installed at a very slight fall.
 

The rain drains down the gaps all around each tile, so drainage is good, having said that there is a minuscule lip to the tiles and that, along with surface tension, does cause a small pooling of water at the lower end of most of the tiles after it’s rained.
 

The lack of grout was one of the reasons I went for the pedestal system as my experience of patios in the past is it’s the grout that fails first and starts looking cruddy/needs redoing.