In homes built before the 1980s, assume old flooring and mastic may contain asbestos until it has been tested.
Most Layton houses were built from the early 1990s onward, which means the bathrooms are not old but they are not original either — they are reaching the age where the builder-grade fittings are being replaced. The typical project here is a fiberglass or cultured-marble tub surround coming out and tile going in, or a master shower built twenty-odd years ago that has started to leak. Both of those are really waterproofing projects with tile on top, and the difference between a shower that lasts twenty-five years and one that fails in six is almost entirely in the layer nobody ever sees.
A shower built in the nineties or early 2000s was often built the way it had been built for decades: a mortar bed over a sheet liner, with the tile set on cement board above it. That system works when every detail is right, and it fails in predictable places when they are not — at the corners of the pan, at the curb, where the liner meets the drain, and around the valve and the shower arm.
The symptoms arrive in a specific order. Grout starts darkening along the bottom course. A tile at the base sounds hollow. Then there is a damp patch on the ceiling below, or the flooring outside the shower starts to lift at the threshold. By the time water is visible outside the shower, it has usually been inside the wall for a long time.
That is why diagnosis matters before any tile is bought. Regrouting a shower that is leaking behind the tile is money spent on the symptom, and it buys a few months. The honest version of this conversation establishes whether water is getting past the surface, and if it is, says so.
A one-piece surround is usually fastened to the studs with a flange and then drywalled over, which means getting it out involves cutting the drywall back and dealing with whatever the flange left behind. That is routine. What is not routine is what the opening reveals: in a surprising number of houses there is no waterproofing behind the surround at all, because the surround was the waterproofing.
So a tile replacement is not a swap — it is building a wet-area assembly that was never there. That means proper backer board rather than drywall, a waterproofing membrane over it, and a pre-sloped pan or a properly built mortar bed with the drain correctly tied in. Quotes that look very different from each other usually differ precisely here.
Worth asking directly: what waterproofing system is being used, is it sheet or liquid-applied, and how are the corners and the curb detailed. An installer who answers that clearly is doing the part that matters. One who treats it as an afterthought is quoting a shower that will leak.
Large tile has been the fashion for years and it is less tolerant than small tile of a floor that moves. Industry practice holds wood-framed floors to a deflection limit of about L/360 for ceramic tile and roughly twice as stiff — L/720 — for natural stone, which in practice means some floors need stiffening before they can carry stone at all.
In a two-story Layton house with a bathroom over a long joist span, that is a real consideration rather than a theoretical one. The tell-tale failure is a crack running in a straight line across the floor, usually parallel to the joists, which is the floor flexing rather than the tile being defective. An uncoupling membrane helps with minor movement; genuine deflection needs the framing addressed.
The other large-format requirement is flatness. Big tiles bridge low spots and show lippage at the edges, so the substrate has to be flatter than it needed to be for small tile. That often means a self-leveling pour, which is an added line item and a legitimate one.
Probably not, and it is worth finding out before spending on it. Darkening along the bottom course, a hollow-sounding tile at the base, or flooring lifting at the threshold all suggest water is getting past the surface rather than sitting on it. Regrouting a shower that is leaking behind the tile buys a few months. Have someone establish whether the waterproofing has failed first.
It is a bigger job than a swap, because in many houses of this era the surround itself was the waterproofing and there is nothing behind it. Tiling means building the wet-area assembly from scratch: backer board instead of drywall, a waterproofing membrane, and a properly detailed pan and curb. Ask each bidder what waterproofing system they use and how they detail the corners — that is usually where the price difference is.
Sometimes, but it needs checking first. Industry practice allows roughly L/360 deflection for ceramic and about L/720 for natural stone, so a bathroom over a long joist span may need stiffening before it can carry stone. A straight crack running parallel to the joists is the classic sign of a floor that moved. Large tile also needs a flatter substrate, which often means a self-leveling pour.
Describe the job and we'll match you with an installer who builds the assembly in the right order.
Get a Tile InstallerA rough description is plenty — we will follow up to scope the details and set a time.
