Clearance timber look tiles
Porcelain planks printed as timber. The reason people choose them over real boards is not the price, it is that they go anywhere: bathrooms, laundries, outdoor areas and over hydronic heating, none of which real timber tolerates well.
Buying timber look tiles: what actually matters
Plank tiles want a one-third offset, not a half
Long thin tiles are not perfectly flat. They bow very slightly along their length, which is within tolerance and completely normal. Offset two planks by half their length and you place the highest point of one against the lowest point of its neighbour, producing a lipped edge you can feel with a bare foot and catch with a vacuum. The industry answer is a maximum one-third offset, and many manufacturers now specify a quarter. Some will void the warranty at 50%. A random or one-third stagger also looks more like a real timber floor, so there is no trade-off here.
A wider grout joint does real work on a plank
The instinct is to close the joint up as tight as possible so it reads as timber. On a long plank a tight joint has no room to absorb the slight length and bow variation between tiles, so every small deviation shows as a wobble in the line. Three millimetres, in a grout colour close to the tile, disappears visually and gives the setter room to keep the lines true.
How much to over-order, and why 10% is usually the wrong number
Ten per cent is the figure everyone repeats and it is only right for a simple rectangular room laid square with a large format tile. Straight lay in a plain room runs closer to 7 to 10%. A diagonal or herringbone lay wastes far more on the perimeter cuts, so 15 to 20% is realistic. Small formats and mosaics waste more again as a proportion. Rooms with lots of edges, a hob, a niche, a stepped floor, push it up. Because this stock does not come back, round up to the next whole box and then add one more: a spare box costs less than the tile and stops a single cracked tile in year three becoming a whole new floor.
Why this stock is such good value
Clearance tiles are not seconds. Everything here is first grade. It is cheap because it is finite: a line an importer is clearing, a colourway a manufacturer has stopped making, or the tail of a container that nobody wants to keep warehousing. The catch is not quality, it is that you cannot get more. On a normal tile you can go back in six weeks for another two boxes. Here you cannot, so the quantity you order is the quantity you will ever have.