We get called to tear out five-year-old showers constantly. The tile looks fine. Behind it, the mortar bed is saturated, the studs are black and the subfloor is soft. That happens because someone tiled over green board, skipped a proper pan liner or sloped the pan the wrong way. We build the assembly correctly - sloped pre-slope, bonded waterproof membrane, correct drain, correct movement joints - and then we tile. It costs a little more on day one and saves a demolition later.
Tile size and pattern - herringbone and large-format cost more labor than a running bond. Whether the drain moves. Whether we open the wall to a neighboring unit. Glass - a frameless enclosure is a real line item. And whether the existing framing is square, because nothing tiles cleanly on a wall that is out of plane by half an inch.
Two to four weeks depending on scope. If it is your only bathroom, tell us at the estimate and we will sequence the work to shorten the fully-out-of-service window.
Yes. It requires recessing the pan into the joists, so we need to look at the framing direction and floor structure first.
We stop, photograph it, and tell you the same day. Small localized areas we remediate. Anything significant goes to a licensed remediation company before we rebuild, because that is the correct order.
Yes, both mat and cable systems, with the thermostat on its own circuit.
Not if the substrate, membrane and movement joints are right. That is where we spend the extra time.
