Tile Repair near you

Tap suspect tiles lightly with a screwdriver handle or a coin and listen: a well-bonded tile gives a solid click, while a debonded one sounds dull. Then look at the pattern, because where the damage sits and what shape it takes usually say more than the damage itself.

Tile and grout are rigid and barely stretch, so they crack wherever the surface below moves more than they can. On wood-framed floors the usual culprit is deflection: joists or subfloor panels that bend slightly each time someone walks by, which carpet or vinyl would never reveal. Joists notched for old plumbing, a heavy tub or appliance, and poorly fastened subfloor panels all add to it. Stiffening the floor from below is carpentry, sometimes structural work, and it comes before any new tile.

On concrete, a shrinkage or settlement crack in the slab tends to telegraph straight up through the tile, opening and closing with the seasons. Tile laid tight against walls, columns and cabinets, without flexible joints at the perimeter and across large areas, builds up stress as the house heats, cools, dries and humidifies, until tiles let go or tent. Workmanship plays a part too: too little mortar under the tile, mortar that had skinned over before the tile went on, or an adhesive unsuited to a dense or large tile.

A repair is only as good as the match. The same product can vary in shade and size between production runs, which is why cartons carry a lot or shade code, and a tile bought years later from the same line may still stand out. Before booking a repair, look for leftovers.

The installer first cuts out the grout around the damaged tile with a grout saw or oscillating tool. The tile is scored or drilled and broken out from the centre toward its edges, then the old mortar is scraped or ground down until the new tile will sit flush. Over a heated floor, chisels and grinders can nick the cable or tubing, so the work goes slowly there; if the heat stops working afterwards, testing and repairing an electric element belongs to a licensed electrician.

The replacement is back-buttered, set in fresh mortar suited to the tile, pressed level with its neighbours and left to cure as the mortar maker directs before grouting. New grout rarely matches weathered joints exactly, so some pros regrout a wider area for an even look. Where tile meets a wall, tub or cabinet, the joint gets flexible sealant rather than grout.

One or two hollow tiles that are still flat and intact are sometimes left alone and watched, because prying them out can crack a sound neighbour. Loose, cracked or heavily trafficked ones are lifted and reset in fresh mortar. Products that inject adhesive under hollow tiles through the grout joints exist, but results vary and they can't save a tile whose bond has failed completely.

When hollow areas keep spreading, cracks return after each repair or a whole section tents, patching is working against the cause. The lasting fix is to find why the tile moves, whether that means stiffening the floor, isolating a slab crack or adding movement joints, then redo the affected area, often over an uncoupling membrane. When replacements can't be matched and grout is failing everywhere, a new floor is often the better investment than a series of visible patches.

A cracked tile on a kitchen floor is mostly cosmetic; in a shower or around a tub it's an opening for water. Tile and grout aren't the waterproof layer, the membrane or backer behind them is, and a crack or a loose tile lets water reach it every time the shower runs. A tile that moves when pressed often means the wall behind it is already wet or soft, especially in older showers built over drywall or plaster without a membrane.

Health Canada's guidance on moisture and mould advises repairing or replacing open, cracked or damaged tiles, grout and caulking around showers and tubs. Until the repair, use another shower if you can and dry the walls after use. A pro should open the area, check the backer and membrane and let it dry out; if the board has softened or mould has spread behind the tile, the job becomes a partial rebuild of the wall rather than a tile swap.

Replacing a tile means chipping out what's beneath it, and in older homes that layer deserves a closer look. Health Canada notes that asbestos was mainly used before 1990 and lists floor tiles, cement, caulking and sealants among home products that may contain it, with fibres released when such materials are scraped, broken, sanded or removed. Black adhesive under old tile, and older resilient tiles sometimes buried beneath a tile floor, are common suspects. Health Canada advises having a professional test before renovating and hiring a qualified asbestos removal specialist if asbestos is found.

Cutting and grinding tile, grout and mortar also raises dust containing crystalline silica, which the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety lists as a known cause of lung cancer; it advises against dry sweeping and compressed air, favouring water or an approved HEPA vacuum. Even for one tile, that means cuts made on a wet saw outdoors or with extraction on the grinder, the room closed off, and a HEPA cleanup at the end.