Welcome 15 different countries this month from around the globe reading this blog

Diana and I are proud to welcome our International readers from around the  globe! We are amazed and grateful to see stats that indicate readers from 15 different countries   just this month alone.  The countries visiting the "ask Chris" blog  are very diversified and include this month France, Germany, Australia,  India, Canada, China,  Ireland, New Zealand, Ukraine, Russia, United Kingdom, Iceland, Malaysia , Moldova and of course  the US. We thanks all our interested readers and hope we are providing you with useful information and valuable insight. We  look forward to more opportunity's to serve all our readers tile info needs , and as always will answer any specific questions or inquiries directly related to our industry.  We want to offer a special  thanks to all our readers and also to Google international for making it possible for our out of the country readers easily finding us.

Question from Jim Blog reader

I came across your responses to questions re: waterproofing and I appreciate your response as I am about to do a demo of a walk in shower. I will be taking it down to the studs as I am sure it has regular sheet rock and not hardieback as mold keeps coming through the grout. it is tiles floor, ceiling and walls.

My question is: I am removing all walls and tile and installing hardiebacker. I will be scraping tiles off the floor/pan and assume it is a poured concrete pad as the shower is a customer size - pretty long. After I scrape the tiles off the floor/pan and before I reinstall new tiles, will I have to do anything to that pan such as re-waterproof or perhaps even do a whole new pan? If I do, I will probably have to hire a professional as I am not confident that I can pour a new floor/pan. And I am afraid once I start demo, if I have to have a new pan installed, I will be waiting to find a professional to do it and that puts the shower out of commission for a long time. What are your thoughts and/or suggestions? Nothing has been started at this point.

RESPONSE

Jim

if you remove the tiles from the concrete pan carefully without cracking or gouging chunks of the concrete there is no reason you cant install new tile on it without removing it. If its a little rough or some thin set is left on the concrete you can just skim coat it smooth with thin set then let it dry a day  before you install new tile. There is no reason to remove the concrete and redo the pan if it is not leaking. Another options is to install your new tile on top of the existing tile floor just treat the existing tile with concrete bonding additive so the thin set will adhere good to the old tile lay your new  tile on top of the old tile . As for your drain  remove the drain grate screws and drain grate lay your tile so as the drain grate will sit flat on top of new tile(tile is laid just 1/4  inch inside of drain edge leaving screw holes clear to reinstall grate screws) get longer drain grate screws and screw grate flat on top of dry grouted finished tile. 

Building Community Resource Based on Sharing Tile Experience

Hi Everyone!

And yes, I said welcome to OUR blog because that's what I hope this becomes.-a shared community resource.   I hope to share experiences and opinions based on my 30+ years experience as a tile guy, to hopefully help consumers from expensive or disastrous mistakes. I'll answer some tile questions from yahoo, like this one on installing tile over linoleum, or a customer looking to find the average cost of tile installation in the North East. I'll try and keep a running list of topics answered. If I run across a good tip or resource for other hard-working small business owners, I'll post it here.

But mostly, I am hoping to here from you people-the potential tile installation or bathroom remodeling customers who need honest, free, no-strings attached, professional advice to their upcoming projects.  And hopefully, we'll build a useful database for others to search for answers. I am open to suggestions or feedback on this site too. I can use the help!

Oh, I did want to mention, anything I say here is intended as an opinion only. I suggest you get lots of opinions, then come to your own conclusion.  I do not endorse or recommend YOU do anything...I am just sharing what I would do.

Thanks!
-Chris

UPDATED MESSAGE: November 30, 2014

This was the first blog entry from Chris back in Dec. of 2010. I thought it appropriate to re post this initial entry as a reminder of the intention of this DIY and Consumer Tile Help Blog. Chris shares his 30+ years experience as a tile installer. He tries to do so honestly and without selfish motivation, and as he is a passionate southern, he sometimes says what he thinks without concern for ruffled feathers. That's how he rolls, and so he makes it clear, His is but ONE opinion, one perspective, one tile installer's experience. He doesn't claim to know it all, and we have made this blog open to other's feedback and perspectives. Sometimes people disagree, and that's fine. We invite respectful feedback, even invite it sometimes, and we even like a little controversy-shaking it up a bit. 

I put one of Chris's recent posts on hold after initially publishing it and getting responses pointing out some potential misinformation on our part. I take the blame for that because I had not done my research before Chris posted it. I came a little late on the scene, so I do apologize to everyone, especially Chris, and I thank the tile guys that kindly pointed things out so we could catch ourselves just in case. I will have Chris go through it when he has a minute, and I will do what I should have done prior to posting. We'll keep you posted.  Thank you. Again, my mistake; I apologize. Diana

Tile Installation- Time Vs. Price

Hello,

First of all, let me apologize. I'm new to all this technology stuff, but I guess my "Welcome to Our Blog" post was supposed to come before I shared stories. However, I thought the following information might be helpful, and save some people some money, so it took priority. I'll try and post the first entry, but we'll see. Hang in there with me folks!

So, onto the information I wanted to share. I wanted to share some insight with people out there that need tile work done. Unfortunately, many people within the industry are out to get as much as they can for installation jobs. One of the most common ways to increase the charges for the installation is to drag the job out. Here's a good example I recently came across.

I recently installed a kitchen backsplash where the customer had gotten several estimates and done his research. Quotes were anywhere from $500-$750.00. Time frames varied from 2-4 days. As soon as I talked to him on the phone, I knew this was an installation that would take me a matter of hours. So, I priced the installation accordingly, which happened to be considerably lower than the above mentioned estimates because I knew through my 30+ years experience, that the job would take only half a day-and it would be flawless.

After our phone conversation, the potential customer checked out pictures of my work and references on my website, http://www.tileexcellence.com/  and quickly  scheduled the job. The bottom line here is, there are installers out there who will drag out the job to justify the price or are too inexperienced to do the job in a reasonable time frame, thus charging more. To save yourself from this situation, be sure to get three or more quotes for any installation and get references.  Check out their work if you can.

Tile Excellence, Inc. did the job in about 1/2 a day, and it costs the customer only $350.00 in labor. To see this project, before and after, and/or to see what Scott from Wakefield had to say about his new backsplash and the quality of the work, click here to visit our customer testimonial page.

Next blog post, I'll talk about hardyboard vs. durock. Stay tuned, and send me your questions or share your experience. Thanks.

-Chris
Owner, Operator
Tile Excellence, Inc.
Gloucester, MA
http://www.tileexcellence.com/
tile_excellence@yahoo.com
(978) 471-9127