What our shower tile installation covers in Sterling Heights
Most of the showers we open up in Sterling Heights sit in homes built between the 1950s and the 1990s. Behind the tile we usually find a mortar bed that has gone soft, or a sheet of drywall doing a job it was never meant to do. Water found a path years ago and nobody saw it. By the time a homeowner near Dodge Park calls us, the grout is dark at the corners and the floor outside the shower feels spongy. We start by pulling everything back to the studs so we can see the framing. If a plate is wet we replace it. Then we build the wet area again in the right order, and the tile goes on last, over a surface that will keep water where it belongs.
Our order of work does not change. We set the pan or the sloped bed so water runs to the drain, then we bond a waterproof layer over the walls and the curb, and we flood test before a single tile is cut. That test sits overnight. If the level drops, we find out why while the walls are still open, which costs you nothing but a day. Once the shower holds water, we lay out the tile from the sight line you see when you walk in, not from a random corner. Cuts land where the eye does not go. Niches get built to the tile size so no piece gets sliced to a sliver. Grout and sealant go in after the mortar has cured.
- Every shower we build gets a flood test before tile goes up. A leak shows up on our clock, not in your ceiling next winter.
- We set the slope by hand toward the drain, so water leaves the floor instead of pooling around your feet.
- Waterproofing runs up the walls and over the curb as one layer. Corners and the bench get covered too.
- Full tile pieces meet you at eye level. The odd cuts sit low, in a corner, or behind the door.
- One crew handles it from tear out through final grout, and the same person answers when you call.
Sterling Heights water carries a fair amount of mineral, and you can see it on any glass door in Macomb County. That matters for tile choice. Porcelain and glazed ceramic shrug off the film. Natural stone drinks it in and shows spotting sooner, so if you want marble on the walls we will tell you what upkeep it asks for before we order it. Floor tile inside the shower is a separate call. Small pieces mean more grout lines, and grout lines are what keep wet feet from sliding. We usually run a mosaic on the floor and something larger on the walls. If your bathroom is tight, and plenty of the ranches off Schoenherr are, we keep the wall tile light and save the pattern for one wall so the room does not close in on you.
If your shower is tired, or the grout keeps coming loose no matter how many times you fill it, the fix is usually deeper than the surface. Call us and we will come look at it. We will tell you straight whether it needs a full rebuild or whether you can get a few more years out of it with smaller work. We schedule around your household, we keep the dust contained, and we clean up at the end of each day. Sterling Heights, Utica, Shelby Township, Warren, we work all of it.
