Tile is one of the few trades where a bad job looks fine on the day it’s finished. The grout is clean, the lines are straight enough, the cheque clears. The problems show up in year three, behind the wall, on someone else’s ceiling. So hiring a tile contractor is mostly about finding out what they do where you can’t see it. Here’s how we’d go about it if we were the client.
Start with the wet areas
Ask every contractor the same question first: “What’s your waterproofing system in a shower, and do you test it before you tile?” You’re listening for a named system, a sheet or a properly applied liquid membrane on every wet surface, a bonded drain, and a flood test with the drain plugged before tile goes on. If the answer is about the tile, the grout, a sealer, or “we use cement board,” keep looking. Our note on what’s behind a tiled shower explains why this one question sorts most of the field.
Ask what certification actually means
Schluter certification means the installer has been trained by the manufacturer on the KERDI and DITRA systems and installs them to spec, which is what keeps the manufacturer’s warranty valid. It isn’t a licence and it isn’t the only way to build a good shower, but it tells you the contractor has invested in doing the assembly right and can be held to a written standard. Ask to see it. Ask what other systems they’ve trained on. Then ask how many showers they’ve built with it; the certificate matters less than the repetition behind it.
Look at the work, not the portfolio
Anyone can post a finished photo. Ask for in-progress photos: the membrane before the tile, the layout lines on the wall, a niche being waterproofed, a mitred corner half done. A contractor who photographs their prep is proud of it, and prep is where the money you can’t see goes. Then look at the finished work for the things a camera hides: do the grout joints line through from the wall to the floor, does the glass sit on a joint or cut across a tile, do the cuts hide at the floor and in corners, does the niche land on grout lines. Our Calacatta wet room and geometric accent wall show both stages.
Ask about the substrate
Every tile job in an older Vancouver, Burnaby or North Shore home starts with a room that isn’t flat or plumb. Ask how the contractor checks flatness and what they do about it. Ask what happens if they open the wall and find rot. A good answer includes a straightedge, self-leveller or a mortar bed, and a clear process for pricing repairs they couldn’t see when they quoted. A bad answer is “it’ll be fine” or a quote that doesn’t mention prep at all. Large-format tile makes this critical; see large-format tile for why.
Read the quote for what’s missing
A real tile quote itemizes: demolition and disposal, substrate preparation, waterproofing by name, tile setting by area and format, grout and sealant, and what’s excluded. It names the setting materials or at least the manufacturer. It says who supplies the tile and what happens with overage. It tells you whether plumbing, electrical and glass are included or coordinated. A quote that’s a single line and a number is either hiding the prep or not planning to do it. The cheapest quote is almost always cheapest in the places listed in our note on bathroom renovation costs.
Check the things everyone checks
Insurance, current and covering the work in your home. WorkSafeBC coverage for the crew. A business registration you can look up. References from the last year, not the last decade, and ideally one from a job that had a problem, because how a contractor handles a problem tells you more than a job that went smoothly. Read the reviews for specifics: the names of the installers, what went wrong and how it was fixed, whether the schedule held.
Ask who’s actually on site
The person who quotes is not always the person who sets the tile. Ask who will be in your bathroom, how long they’ve been with the company, and whether the layout is planned by the person setting it. Custom work especially, bookmatched stone, patterned walls, mitred edges, depends on one person holding the whole layout in their head from the first line to the last cut. Our custom tile installation page explains why that matters.
Red flags
- No waterproofing named, or “we seal the grout.”
- A quote with no prep line.
- Tiling the backsplash before the counters are in.
- Grout instead of silicone at the changes of plane.
- Can’t or won’t show in-progress photos.
- A deposit that’s most of the price.
- A start date next week when everyone else is six weeks out.
What a good process looks like
A site visit where the contractor looks at the substrate, opens what they can, and asks about the layout, not just the tile. A written quote with the assembly in it. A schedule that says which trade is in when. Photos of the membrane before tile, and a flood test you’re invited to see. A walkthrough in finished lighting before the last payment. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to on every job, from a Vancouver condo shower to a West Vancouver slab wet room.
If you’d like to see how we answer these questions, request a quote and ask us all of them.