Tile in Beaverton, OR

Yes, and it costs nothing to check — pull back a corner in a closet. In Beaverton mid-century housing there is often original hardwood underneath, and if it is sound, refinishing may be the better result for less money than a new floor. We will tell you honestly which way we would go, including when the answer is that the old floor is not worth saving.

Always, and in the low-lying parts of Beaverton it matters. The city grew on ground that was wetland, and moisture coming up through a slab or crawlspace will destroy a floating floor no matter what it cost. We test, and if a vapour barrier or a different product is the answer, we say so before you spend anything.

Generally not, and it is better to say so up front. We do not take on repair work for hard surface flooring, tile or countertops on projects we did not install. With a shower the reason is specific: the waterproofing is buried behind the tile, we cannot inspect it, and patching the visible part of a system that may already have failed does you no favours. If we built it, that is a different conversation.

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding about showers. Grout is a filler between tiles and it lets water through. Sealing it helps with staining and slows things down, but the thing actually keeping water out of your wall is the membrane and pan behind the tile. That is why we spend the time there rather than on the part you can see.

Longer than people expect, because the sequence has waiting in it — the waterproofing has to cure before tile goes on, and the setting mortar has to cure before grouting. Rushing any of those stages is how failures start. We will give you a realistic schedule at the estimate, including the days when nothing appears to be happening.

On the walls, easily. On a shower floor it is more constrained, because the floor has to fall to the drain and a large rigid tile cannot follow a slope in two directions without help. Smaller formats or a mosaic conform to the fall naturally, which is why you see them on shower floors so often. We will show you what works with the pan we are building.