Tile Installation near you

Tile follows whatever it's bonded to. On a wood subfloor, the structure must be stiff enough for tile, not just for walking: a floor that gives slightly under carpet can crack grout and tile within a season. The tile and membrane makers' instructions set what the framing and panels must be, installers often add underlayment, and framing that's too weak is reinforced by a carpenter first.

An uncoupling membrane is a thin sheet laid between the subfloor or slab and the tile. It lets the base move slightly, with temperature and humidity or across a hairline crack in concrete, without passing that stress into the tile. It won't rescue a floor that flexes too much, but it's widely used over wood, heated floors and slabs, and some versions double as waterproofing.

In a shower, grout and most tile let moisture through, so the tile goes over a cement or foam backer covered by a continuous membrane, in sheets or brushed on as a liquid, lapped and sealed at every seam, corner, niche, valve and the drain. The parts should belong to one system the maker approves together, and careful installers flood-test the shower floor before tiling.

Before any mortar is mixed, a good installer plans the layout: where the first row starts, how cuts are balanced so thin slivers don't land at a doorway or along the most visible wall, and how joints line up with a tub, a counter or the next room. Large and rectangular tiles need extra care, since a slight bow or an uneven edge between neighbours, called lippage, shows in raking light. Movement joints filled with flexible sealant rather than grout go at inside corners, around the perimeter and where tile meets other materials.

Cement-based grout is the traditional choice, sanded for wider joints and unsanded for narrow ones; it's porous and usually benefits from a penetrating sealer once cured. Epoxy and other premixed grouts resist stains and moisture much better and generally need no sealer, but they're less forgiving to apply. Natural stone and some unglazed tile need their own sealer, sometimes before grouting so the grout doesn't stain the surface.

Tile and stone carry radiant heat well, and an electric heated floor is a popular addition in bathrooms, entrances and basements. The cable or mat goes down on the prepared floor, often inside a membrane made for it, and is embedded in mortar or self-levelling compound before tiling. The tile setter usually does this part and tests the cable before, during and after installation as the maker instructs, because a cable nicked by a trowel is very hard to reach once tile covers it.

Connecting the floor to a circuit, its required protection and a thermostat is electrical work for a licensed electrician, who also handles any permit or inspection required where you live. Decide early where the thermostat and floor sensor will go, leave unheated the spots where a vanity or toilet will sit if the maker says so, and keep the installation records for the warranty.

Cutting, grinding and drilling tile, stone, concrete and cement-based products can release very fine dust containing crystalline silica. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) warns that breathed-in silica dust can damage the lungs and lists crystalline silica as a known cause of lung cancer; its guidance on stone fabrication adds silicosis, an incurable lung disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

CCOHS recommends controlling dust at the source: wet methods while cutting and grinding, tools with local exhaust or HEPA vacuum attachments, and clean-up with a HEPA vacuum or water rather than dry sweeping or compressed air, with respiratory protection when those controls aren't enough. At home, that means a wet saw set up outdoors or in a ventilated area, dust extraction on grinders and the work area closed off from the rest of the house. Ask how the installer will handle it before work starts, especially if children or anyone with a lung condition live there.

A single tile cracked by a dropped pan can usually be replaced: the installer removes the grout around it, breaks it out without disturbing its neighbours, cleans the bed and sets a spare from the same batch. Crumbling or stained grout can be raked out and renewed without lifting tile, and failed sealant at a tub or shower base is cut out and redone, small jobs that keep water from getting behind the tile.

Cracks running in a line across several tiles, tiles that sound hollow when tapped, or grout that keeps cracking in the same spot point to a problem underneath: a floor that flexes, a moving slab crack or missing movement joints. New tiles won't hold until the cause is fixed, and when damage is widespread, redoing the floor over proper support or a membrane is often the lasting answer. In a shower, loose tiles, grout that stays dark and damp or a stain on the ceiling below mean water is already behind the tile, and the waterproofing has to be opened and checked.