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In short<\/strong><\/p>\n Choosing the tile for a pool is a decision you make once and then look at for twenty years. And it is a decision that translates badly to a screen: the same turquoise behaves differently under morning light and under the sun at seven in the evening, and a single tessera held in your hand tells you nothing about a twelve-metre run of it filled with water.<\/p>\n This guide sets out what actually has to be decided \u2014 material, zone, finish, colour \u2014 and ends where it should end: in front of the pieces.<\/p>\n Small tesserae, usually 2.5 cm, mounted on mesh so they can be laid in sheets. Their virtue is that the sheet folds: it climbs a Roman step, turns a tight radius and resolves an organic shape without forced cuts. Glass does not absorb water, so it starts with an advantage in a shell that will be full all year round.<\/p>\n The trade-off is the sheer quantity of grout. In a glass mosaic pool, the grouting is what decides how many years pass without trouble.<\/p>\n We cover it in depth in our guide to glass mosaic pool tiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n A tile pressed and fired at high temperature until the body is extremely compact. For a pool you want one that declares water absorption of 0.5 % or less and is expressly rated for permanent immersion: not all porcelain is.<\/p>\n Its logic is the opposite of mosaic: fewer pieces, fewer joints, continuous surfaces. In a straight-sided shell the result is clean, and it lets you carry the same material \u2014 or its thicker, slip-resistant outdoor version \u2014 right through to the surround and the terrace.<\/p>\n If you are torn between the two, we set them against each other in glass mosaic or porcelain pool tiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is the third route, and the most Mediterranean. Stone-effect porcelain gives you the warmth of natural stone without its porosity or its upkeep. The Sukabumi<\/strong> collection by WOW<\/a>, part of its Wellness line, is designed specifically for water spaces: tones running from white to deep greens and blues, a slip-resistant treatment, and a high shade variation between pieces \u2014 each tone gathers fifty randomly mixed designs \u2014 that reproduces the look of a handmade tile.<\/p>\n That variation is not a defect. It is the reason a Sukabumi shell reads as water rather than as an industrial surface.<\/p>\n\n
Three materials, three different jobs<\/h2>\n
Glass mosaic<\/h3>\n
Porcelain<\/h3>\n
Stone effect and Sukabumi stone<\/h3>\n
Zone by zone: what to ask of each surface<\/h2>\n