Tiling and waterproofing in Canberra
Two trades that live or die on the bit nobody ever sees. Get it right and the room lasts twenty years. Get it wrong and the tiles are coming off again in two.
The job people post most: a shower that is leaking
Damp patch on the hallway carpet outside the bathroom wall. A skirting board gone soft. That musty smell in the robe backing onto the ensuite. It's nearly always the same story — the waterproof membrane under the shower has failed, or it was never right to begin with.
What a good tradesperson will check first
- Whether it's really the membrane or just shot grout and silicone. Very different prices.
- The fall of the floor to the waste, and whether water's sitting anywhere.
- Whether the screen or the tap penetrations are letting it in.
- How far the moisture has already got into the wall frame.
Be wary of a fix that sounds too easy
Re-grouting and re-siliconing is sometimes the right call and sometimes lipstick on a dead membrane. If the damp's already through to the other side of the wall, grout won't stop it. Ask the tradie what they reckon is actually happening, and what the plan is if the cheap fix doesn't hold.
What else gets posted
Full wet-area waterproofing
Bathrooms, ensuites, laundries and balconies stripped back and re-membraned before any new tile goes down.
Floor and wall tiling
Kitchen splashbacks, hallway and living-area floors, large-format porcelain, outdoor and alfresco areas.
Repairs and matching
Cracked or drummy tiles lifted and replaced. Bring a spare tile if you've got one — otherwise you're doing laps of Fyshwick trying to match something discontinued, and that's the hard part.
What to tell us
- Photos of the damage and of the room it's in — including the other side of the wall if that's where you first noticed it.
- Area in square metres, or the room dimensions. A tiler prices by the metre before anything else.
- What's under there now. Timber floor, concrete slab, existing tiles staying or coming up.
- Tile size, and whether you've bought them. Large-format needs a flatter substrate and takes longer.
- When it started, and whether it's getting worse.
- Ground floor or upstairs. A leak above a living room is urgent in a way a ground-floor one isn't.