Floor & Wall Tile Installation
Got damaged or simply outdated old ugly tile on the wall or floor? Or maybe you have cheap linoleum or laminate flooring? Install new beautiful tile floors or walls and bring up the value of your home
Floor & Wall Tile Installation
At some point, all homeowners face the same question: what should I do with my floors? Do you go with carpet or wood flooring? Vinyl or tile? What type of flooring would benefit you and your home the most? Tile usually cost more up front to do but in the long run it outperforms most of all the other options and outlasts them all by a long run. Thus not having to redo you floors few years later like with vinyl or wood flooring that can get damaged very easily from moisture and traffic. Below sheds some more insight on the benefits of tile surfaces.
Durability
Tile is extremely resilient when it comes to staining and wear. Tile is perfect for placement in high traffic areas.
Low Maintenance
Because it is so durable, tile doesn’t need much in the way of upkeep. They’ll need to be cleaned, just like any other surface in your home that gets dirty. You’ll want to apply a sealant on your tile about once every 4-5 years. Aside from that, you don’t have much to worry about when it comes to keeping your tiles in good shape.
Cost Effective
Ceramic tiles are very cost effective: they’re one of the cheapest flooring surfaces available. When you factor the initial cost of purchasing the tile and installing them with their longevity and lack of costly maintenance, it becomes clear that tiles are worth every penny. Of course this also depends on the type of tile you use: there are more expensive and high-end tiles on the market.
Water Resistant
Ceramic tiles have a glazed protective layer on their surface that makes them impervious to water damage and stain penetration. This is why tile is so often used to floor bathrooms. They’re also naturally resistant to humidity, making them ideal for flooring an area that is very hot or moist. In fact tile is so water resistant that roofers in Minneapolis and many other countries use tile as part of their roofing system to protect their homes from all types of weather.
Eco-Friendly
Tile is usually made out of raw materials like glass, sand and clay. These materials often get combined with other recycled materials to form ceramic tiles. They also can literally affect your personal environment: they can reduce your heating bills by keeping your house cool in the summer and warm in the winter by serving as a form of insulation.
Resale Value
Installing tile in your home can also prove to be profitable in the long run if you’re going to put your house on the market. There have been many cases where adding a tile floor to a house tremendously increased its resale value. An attractive tile floor could possibly add thousands of dollars to your home’s value.
Air Quality
Tiles are fired in kilns at extremely high temperatures, making it so they contain no volatile organic compounds. This is important as VOCs contribute to a wide range of health problems. Some other forms of flooring (like vinyl and carpet) have low VOC output, but none can stand toe to toe with tiles.
The Process
DEMOLITION: If you have existing flooring like hardwood, laminate or tile, the first step requires us to remove existing flooring down to the main subfloor. Existing tile floors are one of the most complex and time consuming floors to remove because its motard into your cemented or cement board thats screwed down to you subfloor thus usually costing more to tear out and dispose then any other flooring. Some homeowners decide to do this themselves to save on the total costs as but be warned it takes a lot of sweat and elbow grease to get this done.
PREP: Once your old floor is removed the area is cleaned up and the next step is to install the cement board. We specifically use HardiBacker Cement board on the floor as it is one of the most stiffest and durable cement boards on the market and adds stiffness to any soft subfloor. We provide and install either 1/4″ or 1/2″ cement board on the floor depending on the desired finished floor height. The cement board is installed with out automatic subfloor screw guns with hundreds of screws to ensure solid stiff bond to the subfloor. All the seams and connections of the cement board get reinforced with fibertape and skimmed with mortar to ensure no movement occurs on the seams that can cause cracking in the future.
Tile Installation: Tile will be measured as well as the areas to be tiled to calculate where it would be best to start the tiling from to ensure good size cuts will be made at each wall. This is the time that our service pros will usually confirm on the grout line size and tile pattern our clients want. Tiles will get installed on latex modified white thinset that has much stronger adhesion properties then standard grey thinset. After the tiles are installed we allow them to dry over night before proceeding to grout them.
Grout Installation: Once all the tile is set and the thinset had a chance to dry the next process is installing the grout. Grout color will be chosen by the clients. Before the grout installation occurs our service pros will remove and existing thinset mortar from grout lines that might have protruded up during the tile installation. This is a very important step as if not removed the thinset will show through the grout. Once all the grout is installed we allow it to dry over for a hour before all the tile and grout gets wiped down again to remove any let over grout haze. The grouts that we use are self sealing and do not need to get sealed. At this point your tiled bathroom floor would be complete and you would need to allow it to cure for 48 hours before use.
Common Questions
All the demolition materials will get packed up into contractor bags and either hauled away to be disposed at s waste management facility, or a green Bagster can get setup in a non intruding location on your driveway where all the demo will get dumped and picked up at the end of the week by a Bagster collecting crane dump truck.
As there are so many tile looks to choose from varying in colors shapes and sizes, we leave choosing and providing the tile for the project to the clients. We usually advise them to see the selections in their local Home Depot or Lowes stores and if they don’t find anything they like then to visit tile specific stores like The Tile Shop or Minnesota Tile. We offer all of our clients to save 25% off their tile purchase by using our contractor discount at such locations. All of the amounts needed for you project will be stated on your project estimate as we measure your project during our in home estimates to provide you with those amounts.
Usually most floors up to 50 ft.² take 2-3 days to complete.
Yes you are welcome to do the demolition, haul away and clean up yourselves if it’s in your skill level to accomplish. We just ask that the demolition and cleanup is done properly so we don’t have to spend additional time finishing up things that weren’t finished like removing nails, screws, staples and cleaning everything up.
Yes, natural stone tiles like marble, granite, travertine or limestone cost more to install due to it taking longer to install them and setting materials costing more for natural stone tile applications. Natural stone tiles cant be cut on a basic score and snap cutter like ceramic or porcelain tiles and need to be cut on a outdoor wet saw that has to be setup every morning and taken down at the end of each day. each cut has to be hand dried after getting wet on the saw prior to installation. Unlike Ceramic tiles natural stone tile needs to also be sealed after the project is complete. It usually runs about $5 additional per ft.² to do natural stone tile.
Yes, Mosaic tile always carries and additional charge to install as its much harder and more time consuming to install a small mosaic tile vs a larger format tile. Some mosaic tiles can take almost 2 times longer to install then basic large format tile.
Yes, any other patterns other than straight or staggered cost more to install just because the more complex the patters the more time consuming the project is.
