While it is not the core of what Fireclay does, throughout the years Fireclay’s Boneyard has become quite the “secret” for those in the know who are either looking for a phenomenal deal on beautiful overstock tile or for those who are mosaic fanatics. Many of these individuals are exceptional artists and create exquisite designs. To foster this creativity, we even started a series of Mosaic Tiling Classes this Spring run by Mosaic Expert Delaine Hackney which have been very successful.
Here are some great examples of two Boneyard fanatics and some of their latest creations!
Mary Ann Carmack
Mary Ann is a boneyard fan who has been shopping at Fireclay for many years. When she isn’t creating benches, Mary Ann enjoys being a pediatrician. Here are two examples of her latest work which are comprised mostly of Boneyard materials.
Michael Price
Another great example of these mosaic artists who cherish our Boneyard is Michael Price. Michael is a retired kindergarten teacher who first took a mosaic class down at Grove Beach, Calif. and really enjoyed the class. His first project was his own house number, and soon he was off and running and making some outdoor tables. Shown here is Michael’s latest creation using material from our Bonyard: a half pear
Michael is currently designing a mural of an aquarium.
Got a mosaic creation from our Boneyard? (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll include it on our site!
San Jose Factory Showroom Sale - 20% Off New In-Store Orders (2/20-2/28)
Please note this sale ended on February 28, 2010. So you don’t miss our next Factory Showroom Sale make sure to sign up for the Fireclay Tile email alerts
We are excited to announce a End of Winter San Jose Factory Showroom Sale. We are offering 20% off all NEW orders of Fireclay Tile-made products.
When: February 20 through the end of the month What: 20% Off All New Fireclay Tile Orders Where: Fireclay Tile Factory Showroom
Note: This does not apply to any of our other vendor materials that we carry, including Saltillos. It does apply to our discounted Boneyard where we sell our seconds and overstock products.
Fireclay Tile, Defining Sustainable Surfaces (Norberry Tile) - February 2010
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our first series of mosaic classes in our Factory Showroom starting late February 2010.
Delaine Hackney (http://www.delainemosaic.com) an accomplished mosaic artist and teacher, will be leading these sessions, the first of which will focus on Pet Portraiture. Delaine is a highly accomplished mosaic teacher, with experience from Oakland’s Mosaic Art Institute as well as numerous national workshops.
These sessions will take place using materials from the Fireclay Boneyard and will truly help you take your mosaic tiling to a new level.
Sessions are 3 consecutive Saturdays lasting from 10AM - 2PM. Registration is $130, which includes everything.
Session 1 is 2/27, 3/6, and 3/13
Session 2 is 4/3, 4/10, and 4/17
For more information, please contact Delaine at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or see the flyer below.
Last week we were fortunate to have Daniel Cronin visit our Factory Showroom and Offices and take some incredible still photography of our products. You can view the entire set of product shots on our Flickr site
We loved all of his shots, and some of our favorites were as follows:
Basic 4x4 Field Tile (Debris Series)
Relief Debris Series Decorative (12x12)
Raised Vitrail Series Decorative (2 4x4s)
Cuerda Seca Tile (6x6)
About Daniel Cronin: Daniel lives in Portland, OR, but does work throughout the West Coast. His website has great representations of his work, and we think very highly of him.
We are thrilled to move forward with a small renovation to our Factory Showroom. On December 30, 2009, we removed a significant part of one of our showroom walls, opening up a formerly inaccessible spot. We look forward to adding a beauitful bathroom installation to this spot and bringing forward a HUGE collection of range and field boards to showcase our 224 standard glaze colors for our Debris Series Recycled Ceramic Tile and Vitrail Series of Handmade Ceramic Tile.
We thought we’d share a video that highlights how cool the demolition was! Huge thanks for Martin, Carlos, and Ramiro Jr. for their help!
GoSolar California, an effort sponsored by California’s Public Utilities Commission and Energy Commission, announced the winners of their 2nd annual sweepstakes recently. Fireclay participated in the event because we believe SO STRONGLY that California should be supporting solar, and offered a $5,000 product reward for one lucky winner.
The lucky winner is Joelle Hemming from Elk Grove, CA, and Joelle’s participation we are providing a not yet available BottleStone countertop and Fireclay Tile Debris Series backsplash, all with a retail value of up to $5,000. Our beautiful unique ceramic products made from recycled local waste materials are the perfect complement to Joelle’s kitchen, and we look forward to working with Joelle.
More to come later….
Thanks to Elizabeth Marlow and ProPose Marketing for making this happen, and to the California Public Utilities Commission for their efforts in making California GoSolar.
We are so proud to have been chosen by Flouresco and the City of Concord, CA to help make 24 custom signs for kiosks around the city town. This was a fairly extensive project, and one that had several hurdles, but in the end the final product looks fantastic!
To make the signs we water-jet cut sheets of Claymonde and then hand-painted them using the specific artwork (brought to life by our designer, Laura Oster). We then fired the ceramic sheets in our roller kiln, and out emerged an absolutely beautiful, hand-made ceramic sign that will last the City of Concord forever!
Kellee Black, the project manager from Flouresco, had the following to say about Fireclay Tile: “This has been a very challenging project. I did not have much faith in Fireclay when we started due to all of the delays for various reasons and my frustration in trying to get a hold of you. However once we actually got to move forward, my faith was restored, and enhanced. I cannot speak highly enough of what you have done for this project to help make it happen. It’s funny how we both tried to convince the customer of the very end product they chose. I would definitely recommend and use you for any future projects that we encounter with the same application. That little shop bangs out some awesome product.”
Another great Fireclay Holiday party! Please check out the slideshow below for pictures from the event. As always, a special thanks to Martin for making his delicious BBQ and for everyone else bringing sides and dessert. We can’t wait for next year!
Our friends Kevin and Aleida at Thread Collaborative conducted an interview with Paul at GreenBuild last month. We think they did a GREAT job highlighting why we love working at Fireclay and the mission of the company.
The post can be viewed here, and we have copied the text below:
stories of sustainability: Fireclay Tile
by kevin, on December 2nd, 2009
For anyone unfamiliar with Fireclay Tile, they are a manufacturer of wonderful handcrafted artisan tiles located in San Jose CA. I say artisan because their approach, character, manner, and products are more aligned with old-world ideals than modern technology. Just before the exhibition floor opened at Greenbuild 2009, Aleida and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Paul Burns, the founder and chief ceramicist of Fireclay Tile, to talk about company history and personal back story.
Paul started the business with three partners in 1986 but tile production runs in the family. He learned the trade from his uncle when he was just ten years old. Paul is a tinkerer and problem solver at heart. He describes himself as a scavenger interested in efficiency rather than someone with hard core environmental concerns. Although many of his products are composed of recycled material, their creation has come about due to Paul’s impulse to fashion unique solutions and uncover value where others only see useless waste. He seems to thrive in situations where others have tried and failed.
A key year for the company came in 1998 when an adjacent business, one of the largest rock quarries in Northern California, approached Paul with an intriguing challenge — what to do with a by-product of their asphalt gravel production process. After more than eighty years of production the company had accumulated a tremendous quantity of waste rock dust and had yet to develop a use for it. This kind of task seemed perfectly suited to Paul’s disposition, but after a year of research he was still struggling to convert the substance into a viable commercial product. With so much of it available, Paul’s first inclination was to use as much as possible and produce a tile made with a very high percentage of the rock dust. But he discovered the same shortfall as others before him — the stuff was hard to work with.
Another year was spent approaching the issue from a different angle. Instead of maximizing the dust content but creating a terribly unattractive product, he decided to pull back on the dust to determine the point where he could produce an attractive and marketable tile. The final mix used twenty-six percent, and the Debris Series tile was born. That line now also includes twenty-six percent post-consumer glass and six percent spent abrasive from pipe sand blasting. Today the formulation has more than sixty percent recycled content with approximately forty percent being post-consumer.
As Paul describes it, “the thing about clay and ceramics is that there’s flexibility in the chemicals and formulas so they easily accept the use of other materials into the mix.” Although I knew a bit about ceramic processes prior to this interview, that was new to me. He went on to say, “once you fire the product, you purify it. If impurities exist, even bacteria or other harmful compounds, they are made inert when fired.” One example of this was when another local company was discontinuing the use of lead-based glazes for ceramic products. Fireclay Tile mixed the toxic glaze into the body of their tile and essentially sealed the lead, rendered it harmless, and diverted it away from potential environmental harm had it ended up in a landfill.
Armed with knowledge accumulated through the two years required to bring the Debris Series to market, Paul started looking at other opportunities to utilize other waste material. The post consumer recycled glass used in the Debris tiles is actually a waste material rather than recycled. Super fine dust is created during the crushing process after used glass bottles are collected, sorted, and ground into cullet. The cullet is then most commonly used to create new glass, but the dust isn’t typically employed in the same manner. Its small size makes it difficult to clean and sort so it rarely ends up in recycled glass, but it can be used as a filler material for other products. Fireclay’s Bottlestone counter top line are slabs composed of eighty percent waste glass dust.
Other companies have also approached Paul with interesting challenges for utilizing specific waste products produced by their businesses, but we were sworn to secrecy and will hopefully be allowed to give a sneak peek when the products get closer to launch. But I have to say that one in particular sounds really interesting. I can’t wait to see how it progresses.
In addition to developing new products, Paul and his team are constantly looking to maximize their efficiency by using waste from their own facility as raw material for tile products. They’ve started looking into a take-back program, but may limit the scope regionally. Fireclay is very locally minded and is concerned about the overall environmental impact of a product requiring long distance delivery for limited reclaim potential. As an example, the current formulation of Bottlestone limits recycle content of waste Bottlestone to just five percent. They are working on how to increase that number.
Similar to a take-back program is an interesting test they’re currently running. They’re working with the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz to collect as many toilets, sinks, and tubs as possible - they need nearly ten truckloads - to use in the Debris series. Paul says early tests are producing unexpected results. One would presume with so much white vitreous china ground up and added to the clay body, the tile color would be light, but instead it’s dark and gray. The fixtures are pulverized to create a grog which gets mixed in with new clay. Since the grog has already been fired once, it’s far more stable. It’s still too early to tell where this experiment is headed, but I’ll report on it as soon as I hear or see anything.
You would think that Paul’s degree in science from UC Berkley would serve him well with the kind of production problems he’s routinely solving when developing new products, but he likes to say that all the science he uses he learned in high school. With his easygoing nature, it’s easy to hear that and believe him too quickly. But after just thirty minutes with him I get the sense that some serious brain power is being applied.
Although we have never worked together directly, I have been involved with a number of projects where Fireclay Tile products were used and I’ve always been impressed. I can easily recommend this company to anyone interested in using environmentally favorable materials. Do you have any experience with Paul and/or Fireclay? We would love to hear about it.
Thank you, Paul, for your time.
Fireclay November BBQ - October Sales Goal Reached!
On November 20 the entire Fireclay Tile team ventured down to our manufacturing facility in Aromas for a company wide BBQ. Why? We nailed our October sales goal and to celebrate Martin made us a BBQ to die for.
In what has certainly been a challenging year for any company in the building materials space, we have thrived at repositioning ourselves and finding ways to keep doing things better. For our sales and marketing folks based in San Jose, the visit to Aromas gave them a chance to see all the changes we have made in our manufacturing plant to improve how we make our ceramics and the quality controls in place.
Here is a slideshow we put together from the BBQ. Huge thanks to Martin for working his grill magic and to Rosa for her delicious salads and salsas!
October was a great month for us and we look forward to many more!
Fireclay at GreenBuild09 in Phoenix: Booth 4910 (November 2009)
We’re attending GreenBuild in Phoenix, AZ this week and will be showcasing our Debris Series at booth 4910.
We had a great time at the show last year and look forward to a great show this year. Paul and Eric from Fireclay are on site, so please stop by and say hello if you are in the area.
For fun we put together this little video of us putting our booth together. The joys of tradeshow setup!
Enjoy!
DISCONTINUING Jellybeans Glass and Rocks - November 2009
Effective immediately Fireclay Tile is discontinuing our line of Jellybean Glass and Rocks. We are sorry if this causes any confusion, but we have decided to focus exclusively on our Debris, Vitrail, and Claymonde products, which we believe best match our brand and the market needs. This was both an internal decision, and based on feedback from several surveys sent out in September to dealers, architects, designers, and contractors.
Over the next few months we will be selling off our current inventory at a deep discount (50% off) , and would welcome any remaining orders you might have or stocking orders with what product we have. We have posted a current inventory sheet, and will fulfill orders as they come in.
We will continue to focus all of our energy, time, and attention on our own designed products: Debris Series - Recycled Ceramic Tile: Our absolutely gorgeous and unique Debris Series is made of over 60% locally sourced recycled materials and is made by Fireclay in California. It is the only ceramic tile featuring post-consumer recycled waste, and it is available in over 112 natural glaze colors and in hundreds of numerous shapes, sizes and decorative pieces.
Vitrail Series - Handmade Crackled Tile: A handmade, square-edged tile produced on a white, high-fired clay body. Vitrail’s highly crackled, semi-transparent glazes are rich and deep, and are available in over 112 glaze colors. The Vitrail series is also made by Fireclay in California and is available in hundreds of sizes, shapes and decorative patterns, and the tiles are available in Gloss, Patine and Velvet Matte glaze finishes.
Claymonde - Sheets of Color: A unique, futuristic, large format tile (maximum 3’ x 6 ’) with straight edges and a very thin body that is flexible, easy to mount, and nearly perfectly flat. Claymonde is available in 32 colors, is composed of all natural elements with no-VOC emitting glazes, and truly stands apart in the marketplace.
We look forward to making even more improvements to help best satisfy your needs.
In an effort to better communicate our history, product offering, and product details, we have launched a new video series that we will be adding to constantly. We are really excited for this next step fo rour company, and hope it allows you to learn a bit more about us in your quest for beautiful ceramic products!
Over the past few months the team at Fireclay Tile has been working hard to re-think and re-shape how we do business. 2009 has been a hard year for anyone who caters to the building materials market, and in the face of this adversity we worked hard to challenge our business practices and find ways to do better. We started from the inside back in February, and asked our team members what we could do better. This led to numerous improvements around basic things such as our phone system, our order and customer management systems, and how our manufacturing plant worked and communicated with our sales and customer service team. Change was not easy, but it kept us focused during several challenging months, and we have come out the other side stronger than ever.
The next part of our process was to go to our customers, and in September we launched surveys targeting our dealers, designers, and architects. Overwhelmingly, the responses were consistent: “Great tile and absolutely beautiful product…but the customer service and operations needs to improve and we need to know more about your product.” So, basically, customer service and education. Anticipating this was helpful, for in the months leading up to this we have rolled out new initiatives around better online interface to enable easier decision making and product understanding, internal order status tracking, more closely monitoring order progress and notifying customers if jobs are running late, shipment notification emails, and just more general email communication.
The vast majority of our efforts have focused on our loyal dealer base, and focusing in on our dealers to ensure they have the right information, are hearing from us in a timely manner, and are supported with timely order shipments and above all the highest quality ceramics on the market.
Our dealer survey was taken by over 80 dealers and showroom managers, and we LOVED the feedback on both our products and our operations. A brief glimpse into the survey results demonstrated the following:
- While 46% of showrooms felt “very” familiar with our product offerings, 54% felt they only “somewhat” or “barely” knew about our product offering
- An AWESOME 92% of respondents liked our product “A lot” and only 8% “somewhat” liked our product. There was not one respondent who disliked our product. (This was our favorite answer!)
- 86% of respondents would recommend our offering to their clients, while 14% would “maybe” recommend it. The main reason people would not recommend it was due to long lead times or price.
- When asked how we could improve our product, a lot of respondents asked for more contemporary looks, more rectangular/subway sizes,, and more reds and blues. Overwhelmingly, though, people talked about how much they loved all of Fireclay’s colors
- When asked how we could increase your confidence in our products, people responded by saying they needed more samples, the color consistency needed to be better managed and controlled, and orders delivered on time and with more communication.
- Most responders were not large fans of our Jelly Bean Glass or Rocks, and due to these replies and some of our own issues with importing a product from abroad that we did not originally design (unlike our Claymonde product which we do have made in Taiwan but which we designed here in the U.S. and many times glaze special orders in the U.S.), we have decided to discontinue the product from our selection as of the end of the year.
- 48% of responders think we offer “Excellent’ customer service, while 40% think our customer service is “Good” and 7% think it is “Poor”. We believe these numbers are completely unacceptable, and have put in place tangible ways to measure our customer service and ensure 100% satisfaction. Our goal for our next Dealer Survey in 6 months is over 90% satisfaction!
- With regard to customer service, the biggest complaints people had were slow delivery of samples, us not providing enough samples, some orders taking too long, and sometimes slow response times on order confirmations.
- Over 68% of responders are interested in having an in-person representative come to their showroom or do a product knowledge seminar. We are still small and lack outside sales representatives, but we do offer a phone product knowledge seminar, where we review this dealer presentation.
- 70% of respondents think we do an “Excellent” job on shipping, while 28% think we do an “Average” job. Only 1 person thinks we do a “Poor” job. We can do better!
- 48% think we do a “Great” job on accounts, while 52% think we do an “Average” job and one person thinks we do a “Poor” job. Since this is my (Eric) area, I can guarantee it will get better!
There were hundreds of comments in each of these areas, and we have taken them all to heart. Many of the things we have already been working on improving, but we also got many new ideas that are helping shape our 2010 initiatives.
On September 9, 2009, the Mexican Heritage Plaza founders were honored with a plaque that we were honored to help make. The San Jose Mercury News did a great article, which we have included part of below.
More than 100 people - including Mayor Chuck Reed and City Council members Nora Campos and Sam Liccardo - attended. The big highlight was the unveiling of a3-foot mosaic plaque that recognizes Blanca Alvarado as the plaza’s founder, as well as honoring first executive director Pete Carrillo, inaugural board Chairman Fernando Zazueta and the rest of the founding board.
The plaque, placed on the pavilion in the plaza’s courtyard, was designed by artist Carlos Perez to reflect the history of the organization and the East San Jose neighborhood where the plaza stands. Fireclay Tile was able to take Carlos’ design and bring it to life using our Debris clay body and custom decorative tile making.
The 42 2-inch square tiles surrounding the plaque depict, among other things, the United Farm Workers logo, the official seals of San Jose and Santa Clara County, a Del Monte logo and a California mission.
As a gift, Perez presented Alvarado with one of two tiles he made featuring Cesar Chavez. These Chavez tiles were also made by Fireclay Tile.
Paul Burns, our founder and Chief Ceramicist, was able to get a gret photo with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed
NEW BUSINESS HOURS + Closed Saturday/Monday of Labor Day
We will be closed the Saturday (September 5) and Monday (September 7) of Labor Day.
Starting September 8 we will have new business hours for our Factor Showroom in San Jose. Based on your customer feedback we will be staying open later during the week.
Our new hours are:
Tuesday - Friday: 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Saturday: 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
As always we are closed Monday and Sunday.
We look forward to seeing you in our Factory Showroom in San Jose! In case you can’t get through, we are always available via email.
At Fireclay we love food, and we love making our beautiful, recycled Debris Series tile for great food establishments.
Just this month, a wonderful new restaurant - Bocanova - has opened in the heart of Oakland’s Jack London Square. “Pan-American cuisine is the blending of culinary currents from Europe and the Americas while using the best and freshest local ingredients,” comments Bocanova-Executive Chef, Rick Hackett. Beyond the exquisite cuisine, the owners of Bocanova were committed to using sustainable materials and asked their architect, Michael Guthrie Architecture, to specify our Debris Series in the kitchen area. The tile’s 52% recycled material and local sourcing and sustainable manufacturing mattered to them, but the high quality and unique style were absolute requirements. We believe the result is great and can’t wait to go taste some of the delicious food!
Fireclay Selected to Participate in Presidio School of Management POL
Fireclay was today honored to meet our Presidio School of Management POL Project team. We have an absolutely incredible group of five students each tremendously committed to sustainability and triple-bottom line companies.
Enticed by Eric’s 1-hour shoddy video editing (see below), Team Net Zero (as they refer to themselves) is going to be helping us with some of our operational goals for the next 4 months. We are going to be focusing closely on both our operational efficiency and sustainability. Consider this a full company operations audit, as Net Zero will be focusing in on our sustainable manufacturing practices as well as helping drive improvement in our bottom line.
We look forward to sharing their results with you!
As a follow-up to our Newsletter we wanted to announce the winners of our First Trivia Contest. We asked the following question:
Trivia Question: Where does the name “fireclay” come from? Best answer as judged by Paul, our founder and chief ceramicist, wins. Submit entries by August 18, 2009 by emailing (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
The winners and the winnings were as follows:
First place - 2 sets of beautiful Cuerda Seca gift tiles: Jeffery Hellmuth
Runners up - 1 set of beautiful gift tiles: Adrian Crawford, Tyra Johnson, Therese Brown, Alex Moskowitz
The most creative answer came from Tyra who said:
“Here’s my guess. Paul’s middle name is Clay. And his last name Burns is a synonym to fire. As opposed to Burns Clay, he selected Fireclay.”
We look forward to our next Trivia Contest! Thanks for playing!
“A Mission Revival Rises Amid the Palms” - San Jose Mercury News August 8, 2009
Fireclay Tile was recently featured in the San Jose Mercury News for our reproduction of 100-year old tile from a Spanish-style Mission-revival house.
“The stark white house at the end of Plaza Drive in San Jose’s historic Palm Haven neighborhood takes you by surprise. It’s a small single story on a corner lot. But its domed tower and decorative parapet across the roofline force you to take a second look.
This is Michael Borbely’s mini-masterpiece — a recently completed Mission Revival house of stucco and tile that took years of research to create with the help of a local tile company to reproduce century-old details.
It’s not a big house, but it’s a flexible house,” he says. “I see this as able to double as a dining space” or a gracious area for wine receptions. A wainscoting of colorful tile, reproduced by Fireclay Tile, came from a 100-year-old photograph Borbely found.”
We were proud to be part of such a wonderful project!
Fireclay’s Debris Tile and BottleStone countertop featured in new CORA Project - July 2009
We were so proud to be asked to participate in the wonderful CORA Safehouse and can’t wait to see the new house in its debut in August.
Kit Golson, a phenomenal green designer had the following to say to Paul:
—————Forwarded message—————
From: Kit Golson
Date: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Subject: CORA Project Countertop and Tile Donation
To: Paul Burns
Cc: Cori Manthorne , Roger Hagman , Annie Cronin
Hello Paul,
As the designer for the CORA second floor I wanted to personally thank you for the donation of the beautiful Bottlestone blue countertop and all the tiles for both bathrooms and kitchen backsplash. It looks incredible installed and brings a quality, hand-crafted, naturalness to the home.
For pictures and a description, here is a link to the completed project on my blog:
http://chicprovence.blogspot.com/2009/06/safe-and-now-lovely-green-too-before.html
Kindest regards,
Kit Golson
KIT GOLSON DESIGN
http://chicprovence.blogspot.com
Certified Green Building Professional
Member Build It Green
Allied ASID, NKBA
ph: 650-302-6883
f: 650-292-4803
http://www.kitgolson.com
P Save a tree – Don’t print this email
Paul Burns Interviewed By Buildaroo at Dwell on Design
Paul Burns, Fireclay Tile’s Founder and Chief Ceramicist, was interviewed at the Dwell on Design show by Buildaroo. We loved the interview and hope you enjoy it too!
Here’s what they had to say:
Paul of Fireclay Tile started his business 24 years ago, to make high quality handmade tiles for residential and commercial use. He began using refuse and recycled material quite a long time ago, and has since evolved his product to use recycled glass waste, from post consumer recycling. Almost 25% of the clay body in his tile uses the recycled glass. He goes further to use other post-consumer waste in his tiles as well. The recycled glass product helps to make the tile even stronger and more durable than regular tile. To find more information on Fireclay Tiles, visit FireclayTile.com, or a Fireclay Tile dealership. Every product is made to custom order, enabling for fantastic flexibility in several designs, colors, and shapes. The tile can contribute to LEED points, due to its 50% recycled content, as well as the local nature of its manufacturing.
Fireclay on display at Dwell on Design in LA - June 26-28
Fireclay Tile will be showing off its Debris Series and Claymonde at the Dwell on Design show in LA on June 26-28. We are thrilled at the chance to show our sustainable and unique products to such a tremendous and dedicated group of designers and architects. If you are going to be in the area please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.
Our Debris Series was proud to be featured in the home of Christina and Steve Guzzetta, some of our oldest friends, during the Annual Willow Glen Lifestyle Home Tour as featured in the San Jose Mercury News.
Fireclay Tile hosted its biannual Boneyard Sale in its San Jose Showroom from March 30 - April 22. At our sale our great customers found beautiful, sustainable handmade tile discounted at over 75%. We sold overstock and seconds of most of our field tile as well as a huge selection of decorative tiles and moldings. Our showroom is located at 495 W. Julian Street in San Jose, CA and The Bonyeard is open during our regular hours.
We take it as an honor when blogs or news sites choose to review our products. Many times we only find out about these through our one of our favorite company’s, Google, and it’s Google Alerts.
Mother Earth News is one of the most reputable names out there as far as lifestyle blogs that strive hard to promote healthy, happy green lifestyles.
Regarding our Debris Series, they wrote:
“Other products, such as the Debris Series from Fireclay Tile, combine post-industrial and post-consumer recycled wastes. The Debris Series tile consists of 26 percent recycled granite dust (post-industrial waste) from a granite-cutting operation. It also contains 26 percent recycled glass (post-consumer waste). Plus, the glazes used by this company contain no lead, so they’re safer for the workers who apply them.”
All this is true. We might also add that our sustainable manufacturing includes a tremendous amount of re-use of our own materials, including everything from water, glaze residue, and of course the ceramic materials. In total we estimate that at least 60-65% of each ceramic tile we produce is made up of recycled materials, though we only give ourselves credit for recycled materials we obtain from other, non-Frieclay, sources in our marketing literature.
Please let us know if you’d like more information on our Debris Series or any other product by contacting us.
