Tile Installation near you

Tile choice in Australia is usually settled by three questions: where the tile is going, how big it is, and how it behaves when wet. The Queensland tiling licence scope gives a sense of the range a tiler works with, naming ceramic, glass, marble, slate, stone and terracotta tiles fixed to fireplaces, floors, hearths, spas, swimming pools and walls, along with terrazzo construction.

New South Wales treats wall and floor tiling as a licensed trade. The work is described as attaching tiles to the internal or external surfaces of buildings and includes ceramic and natural tiles, cork, linoleum and rubber, mosaics and surface preparation — and, importantly, it includes waterproofing wet areas to get them ready for tiling. A contractor licence is required for residential building and trade work above a set value in labour and materials including GST, and the qualification pathway runs through a Certificate III in Wall and Floor Tiling.

Waterproofing is also a licence in its own right in New South Wales, defined as any protective treatment of a home to prevent water or moisture getting into it, with its own Certificate III qualification pathway. So on a bathroom job you may be dealing with a tiler whose licence covers the waterproofing that precedes their tiling, or with a separate waterproofing contractor — either can be correct, but you should know which it is and see the licence.

Queensland splits the two into separate QBCC classes. The wall and floor tiling class covers cutting and fixing tile to fireplaces, floors, hearths, spas, swimming pools and walls, constructing terrazzo floors, steps, risers and stringers, and applying waterproofing for wall and floor tiling. The separate waterproofing class covers applying, installing and repairing waterproofing including surface preparation, and applying or installing materials or systems for preventing moisture penetration. Whichever state you are in, ask for the licence number and check it on the regulator's public register before work starts.

It helps to know the requirements before the quotes arrive, because the difference between a cheap bathroom quote and a careful one is often here. The building elements in a wet area must comply with AS 3740, and the housing provisions then set out where waterproofing and water resistance apply.

Inside the shower area, the floor must be waterproof, including any hob or step-down, and the walls must be waterproof to a substantial minimum height above the floor substrate. In the room outside the shower, the floor must be water resistant where it is concrete or fibre-cement, and waterproof where it is timber — which is why an upstairs timber-framed bathroom is a more demanding job than a ground-floor one on a slab. Around a bath that is not freestanding, and around basins and sinks close to a wall, the wall must be water resistant to a minimum height above the vessel.

Two consequences follow for a homeowner. First, if a quote does not describe the membrane system and where it goes, you cannot compare it with one that does. Second, a bathroom that leaks is usually not leaking through the tiles — the tiles and grout were never the waterproof layer. That is why a repair that only replaces grout or silicone often buys a few months rather than a fix.

Cutting, grinding and drilling on a tiling job goes through more than the tile. Screeds, mortar beds, concrete substrates and sand-cement render are the materials involved, and SafeWork NSW identifies crystalline silica as a natural mineral found in products such as sand, concrete and granite, as well as in manmade products like engineered stone. The dust generated is fine enough to reach deep into the lungs, which is why regulators treat it as a serious hazard rather than a nuisance, and why New South Wales points out that crystalline silica laws changed in 2024.

The control measures that regulators put in front of this work are well established. WorkSafe Victoria sets them out as on-tool dust extraction, dust suppression, respirator use, and information, instruction and training. In practice, on a domestic job, that means a wet saw or water-fed cutting rather than dry cutting in a closed room, a shrouded grinder connected to dust extraction where a tool must be used dry, properly fitted respiratory protection, and cleaning up with a vacuum suited to fine dust rather than a broom that throws it back into the air.

The engineered stone prohibition is the background to all of it. In New South Wales, the manufacture, supply and installation of engineered stone benchtops, slabs and panels containing at least one per cent silica is banned, and Victoria has prohibited the processing and supply of engineered stone. That affects benchtops rather than floor tiles, but it tells you how seriously the same dust is taken when it is generated by cutting other silica-containing materials on the same site. It is a fair question to ask a tiler how they control dust — and a good sign when they have an answer ready.

Australian Consumer Law gives you guarantees on the service that cannot be excluded: the work must be carried out with an acceptable level of care and skill, it must be fit for any purpose you made known, and it must be supplied within a reasonable time where none was agreed, with the weather and the availability of materials relevant to what is reasonable. In tiling, the scope is where you protect yourself: who is doing the waterproofing and under which licence, which membrane system is used and where it goes, how long it cures and whether it is flood tested, how the falls are formed, where the movement joints go, and who is responsible if the substrate turns out to need repair.

LokalMatch is where that search starts. You describe the job once — the rooms, the tile you are considering, whether a shower or wet area is involved, the age of the house and your postcode — and tilers working in your area contact you themselves. The businesses pay LokalMatch for the requests they take on, which is how the platform is funded, and it costs a homeowner nothing to describe a job. LokalMatch does not carry out tiling or waterproofing, does not quote or set prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any of the businesses that respond, so checking the licence and the insurance remains your job.