What we end up explaining on every site visit, written down. No prices, no superlatives, and no pretending a photograph can tell you what is behind a wall.
If you are at the stage of looking at tile and wondering what holds up in a house near the water.
Porcelain, ceramic, marble, glass and pebble all look fine in the showroom. How each behaves in a coastal house after five winters — water absorption, slip resistance, freeze-thaw in an unheated summer house, and the five material choices that cause callbacks.
Why the same shower behaves differently in Sandwich than forty miles inland. Mildew on grout, the white haze of efflorescence and what each one is telling you — plus why ventilation does more for your grout than any sealer, and what happens to a bathroom closed up all winter.
Big tile means fewer grout lines; small tile follows a slope. Every other difference comes out of those two facts — including why large format costs more in labor in an older Cape house, and why mosaic owns the shower floor unless you are building around a linear drain.
If you have estimates in hand and are trying to work out why they differ.
The questions that separate a sound installer from a cheap estimate, what a good answer sounds like, and eight answers that should worry you. Specific enough that they work on us too — which is the point.
Tile and grout are not waterproof — they are a wearing surface. What is actually behind your tile, the three approaches that work, where showers really leak (corners, curb, niche, drain), and the signs yours was not built right.
The nine phases in order, including the curing days that are not padding and the glass lead time that often outlasts the tile work. What makes a job run long, what you can do before day one, and why winter is the right season for this on the Cape.
If you are close to choosing someone and want to know exactly what you are signing up for.
Every step from your first message to the walk-through: the call back, the site visit, what goes in the written estimate, how the tile gets ordered, how the build runs, and what happens if we open a wall and find a problem.
Massachusetts has a specific registration for residential home improvement work, and whether your contractor holds one changes what happens if the job goes wrong. What it protects, how it differs from a license, what it does not certify, and how to verify a number yourself.
It sounds like a swap and it is a rebuild. What changes behind the wall, why the drain is the whole story, curb versus curbless, how to use the space you gain, and the five decisions to settle before demolition.
Tell us your town and what you would like to change. Lucas calls you back, usually the same day, and comes out to measure. A written estimate follows.
Sandwich, Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, Barnstable and Hyannis, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans and the Outer Cape — and over the bridge to Plymouth, Wareham, Kingston, Carver, Duxbury and Marshfield.
Massachusetts HIC #219595 · licensed and insured · Schluter-Systems trained · certified wedi installer · installing tile on Cape Cod since 2010.