Large-format porcelain slab installation.

A 1620 × 3240 mm slab weighs 215 lb. It is also the most unforgiving piece of finish material on the project — a single hollow, a single 0.5 mm of lippage, and the slab reads broken from across the room. The job is half logistics, half millwork, and zero margin.

We set the largest format porcelain on the market — every day — without a single hand outside the firm touching the slab from pallet to grout.

How a single slab actually goes down

1 · Site survey and load path

We walk the loading dock, the elevator, the corridor, and the room before the order is placed. A 3240 mm slab does not turn a 90° corner on a 5 ft passenger elevator. We lay out the load path in the proposal — including service-elevator hold times in Brickell and Coral Gables towers — and confirm the supplier crate orientation matches the rotation we will need on site.

2 · Substrate sign-off

Every slab is set on a substrate that has been signed off to ± 1.5 mm over a 3 m straightedge. If the substrate is not there yet, we bring our own crew to fix it (see floor leveling). No slab leaves the crate until the floor is signed.

3 · Vacuum-frame handling

Two crew on a Raimondi RLS-Frame vacuum lifter. The slab travels horizontal from crate to setting position, no flex points, no edge contact with the floor. The frame is rated to 250 lb at 4 cups, and we test the seal on every lift before the slab leaves the crate.

4 · Set, beat, level

LATICRETE 254 Platinum back-buttered on the slab, LHT mortar bed combed on the substrate, both at 3/4” notch. Slab placed wet-edge to wet-edge, beaten in with a white rubber mallet on a soft block, leveled with RAIMONDI RLS leveling clips at every 18” of perimeter. Joint set at 1.5 mm — the dry-joint look the architects spec for.

5 · Cure, grout, sign-off

48 h cure before grout. LATICRETE SpectraLOCK Pro Premium epoxy grout in the joint — color matched to the slab body, not contrasted. We walk the floor with the homeowner or designer, raking light across every joint, before the protective covering goes down.

Partner systems we set every day

• Laminam — 1620 × 3240 mm at 5, 12, and 20 mm thickness. The slabs we reach for on calacatta and statuario reproductions where the vein has to read continuous across a 30 ft great room.
• Neolith — 1600 × 3200 mm at 6 and 12 mm. The body color we specify when the project is full-bleed monolithic — kitchen island wrap, vertical-to-horizontal continuity.
• Dekton — 1420 × 3200 mm at 8 and 12 mm. The sintered surface we recommend on outdoor terraces and pool surrounds where UV stability matters.
• LATICRETE 254 Platinum — polymer-modified thinset rated for slabs over 1 m². Our default mortar across every large-format setting.
• Raimondi RLS-Frame — vacuum lifter we operate on every slab over 1 m². Owned in-house.

Where this matters most

Brickell penthouses spec full-bleed Laminam Calacatta across the great room — 1620 × 3240 mm, vein matched, 1.5 mm joint. Coral Gables historic homes use Neolith Iron Frost on a butler’s pantry wall, vertical, 12 mm. Key Biscayne waterfront kitchens wrap a Dekton Aura island — counter, waterfall, toe kick — in continuous vein. Each of these is a different conversation with the supplier, a different load path, and a different mortar system. We have the in-house lifters and the certified crew to do all three without subs.

What the spec sheet should say

If you are an architect or designer specifying our install, four lines are enough:

Slab format up to 1620 × 3240 mm; vein-matched delivery confirmed by supplier prior to fabrication. Substrate to be flat to ± 1.5 mm over a 3 m straightedge; signed off in writing prior to set. Setting method: LATICRETE 254 Platinum back-butter + LHT bed at 3/4” notch; RLS leveling at 18” o.c. Grout: LATICRETE SpectraLOCK Pro Premium epoxy, color-matched, 1.5 mm joint.

We will hit those four lines, we will document the setting on the daily field log, and we will sign off the install with the GC before the protective covering goes down.