Shower replacement in Tampa, FL.
A shower almost never fails at the tile. It fails at the layer behind it. By the time you see something on the surface, the problem has been there a long time. Before you spend anything, here is how to tell which one you have.
Call or text (813) 819-6778.
Priced by written scope, never by the hour.
Is it the grout, or is it the wall? Find out yourself in 5 minutes.
This matters. One of them is a maintenance job that costs a fraction of the other. Any company that tells you it is always a rebuild is not looking. Do these five checks before anybody quotes you.
Tap the tile with a knuckle
Walk the wall and listen. Solid tile sounds solid. A hollow or drummy note means the tile has lost its bond. That is not a grout problem.
Push on the wall, low down
Near the floor and in the corners. Any give, any sponginess, any movement at all means the board behind is wet. That wall comes out, and no amount of new grout changes it.
Look at where the grout keeps cracking
Cracks scattered around are usually age. Cracks that keep coming back in the same corner are different. So are cracks along the joint where wall meets floor. Both mean something behind is moving.
Smell it after a shower
A musty smell should clear once the room is dry. If it does not, water is sitting somewhere it should not be. That somewhere is behind the tile.
Look at the ceiling or wall below
If the shower is upstairs, go underneath and look. A stain there settles the question. If it is on a slab, look at the baseboard on the other side of the shower wall.
What is behind the tile decides the price.
Tile and grout are not waterproof. They are the finish. The waterproofing is a separate layer underneath. Whether yours exists, and whether the board behind it is still sound, is what this job costs.
The board behind the tile
If the wall behind the old tile is soft, wet or crumbling, it comes out. Tiling over a failed wall is the cheapest thing a company can do. It is also the fastest thing to fail.
Whether waterproofing exists at all
Plenty of older Florida showers were built with tile straight onto board and nothing between. Adding a proper membrane is not an upgrade in that case, it is the job.
How far the tile goes
To the ceiling costs more than to the shower head. It is the easiest place to move the number without touching quality.
The pan
Reusing a sound pan and replacing only the walls is a smaller job. If the pan is part of the failure, the pan is part of the scope.
What has to pass before any tile goes back on.
The floor of a shower is the part that gets checked hardest. That happens while the room still looks unfinished. Here is what it has to do.
The floor has to fall toward the drain
A shower floor has to slope toward the drain. The Florida Building Code sets that fall at a quarter inch per foot, which is a 2 percent slope. Too flat and the water sits. Too steep and you feel it underfoot.
It gets filled with water before it gets tiled
The finished pan is plugged and filled with water. It has to hold that water and show no drop. Only after it passes does any tile go on. That day is already inside your price, not an extra.
What happens if it does not pass
A pan that does not hold water gets rebuilt, not patched. It is the cheapest problem you will ever have at this stage. The same leak found after the tile is on costs the whole wall again.
What is included, and where it ends.
A written scope is only worth something if it says where it stops. These are the boundaries we put in writing before anyone starts.
How long the bathroom is out of use.
Demolition tells you what you are really dealing with. So the honest sequence is open it, look, and confirm the scope. That happens before the tile is ordered. After that it is board, membrane, cure, tile, grout, cure. The cure times are fixed, and the dates are in the scope.
When we tell you not to do it
Every company on your list will say yes to this job. We say no to a new shower in the cases below. It costs us the odd project, and it saves you a lot more than that.
The tile is sound and only the grout looks tired
If the five checks above all come back clean, re-grouting and re-sealing is the honest answer. It costs a fraction of a rebuild. We will say so standing in a bathroom you were ready to spend real money on.
You want new tile over the old tile
It can be done. It also traps whatever is already wet. It adds thickness the valve and the door were not built for. And it buys you a couple of years. We would rather do it properly once.
The leak is not coming from the shower
Sometimes the stain on the ceiling below is a supply line or a vent, not the shower at all. Replacing the shower would not fix it, and it would look like the new work failed. We find that out first.
Lifetime warranty on our workmanship.
If the work we did fails, we come back and fix it. That holds for as long as you own the home. Not one year. Not five. As long as you live there.
A warranty is only worth what its exclusions say. Ours are above, in the same size type as the promise. Ask any other company for theirs in writing. Then check how long the tile is covered.
Questions we actually get asked
How do I know if my shower is failing?
Run the five checks above. Tap the tile for hollow spots. Push the wall low down for give. Look at where the grout keeps cracking. Smell the room once it is dry. Look at the ceiling or baseboard below. If any one of them comes back positive, the layer behind the tile is worth opening up.
Can you just re-grout it?
If the wall behind is sound, yes, and we will tell you that. Grout is a maintenance item. It is not the thing keeping water out of your framing. Re-grouting a wall that has already failed only hides it.
What is the waterproofing you keep mentioning?
A continuous membrane goes over the board. Every seam, corner and change of plane is banded. Water that gets through the grout has nowhere to go but back to the drain. It disappears under the tile and you never see it again. That is exactly why it is the first thing cut when a price has to look low.
Do you photograph that stage?
Yes. The waterproofing is photographed before the tile goes on. That way you can see the layer you are paying for, after it becomes invisible.
How often should a tiled shower need this?
A shower built with a proper membrane over sound board should not need rebuilding. Not while you live in the house. Grout and silicone are maintenance and will need attention along the way. If a tiled shower is failing in under 15 years, something behind it was wrong from the start.
The other bathroom services
Where we work
Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties. If your town is not on this list, call and ask: the answer is often yes.
A walkthrough, then a written scope with one closed price.
Never hourly, never a verbal figure, and our workmanship carries a lifetime warranty. Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties.