Floor Tile Installation in Cromwell, CT

We lift a floor register, pull back a corner in a closet or look from the basement at the underside. In a 1970s or 80s Cromwell kitchen the answer is nearly always plywood plus particleboard plus vinyl. The estimate then includes removing the particleboard, because a floor tiled over it will fail.

Yes. It is one of the best uses of them. After a moisture test and flattening, a Schluter Ditra uncoupling membrane goes on the slab and the planks are set on it in an offset of no more than a third of the plank length, which keeps lippage down on long tiles. The floor is warm enough to live on with a rug and unaffected by damp.

We plan it. With particleboard removed and a membrane plus tile added, the new floor usually lands close to the height of adjacent hardwood; where it does not, a matching transition strip or a small reducer makes the change deliberate rather than a trip hazard.

No. Tiling is exempt from a building permit under the state code when nothing structural changes. If joists needed reinforcement it would be a permitted structural repair through the Cromwell Building Department at 41 West Street, and we would advise on that before proceeding.

Sometimes, and it depends on how deep the old floor was built up, so we open a corner of it before we promise anything. Where the two floors land at different heights, we set a matching strip or a small reducer at the joint so the change reads as a deliberate detail and not a trip hazard.

We build the pan, then go over it with a bonded waterproofing membrane such as a Schluter-KERDI style sheet or a liquid-applied one where the geometry calls for it. The membrane runs over the pan, up the walls, around the curb, and over every seam, corner and valve penetration, and we hold a twenty-four-hour flood test before any tile goes down. If a drop moves, we find it while it is still inexpensive to fix.

Only sometimes, and only when the old tile passes the checks: solidly bonded everywhere when you tap it, flat, and structurally sound, with enough give at the outlets, counters and doors to absorb the added thickness. When it fails any of those, tiling over it locks the problem in. On a wet area we almost always take it down to the substrate instead.