Bathroom Floor Replacement
Bathroom Floor Replacement in Renton
A bathroom floor gets wet every day, so the job starts with whether water has already reached the subfloor. Around the toilet and at the shower is where it usually has.
What Is Under the Old Floor
A bathroom is the wettest room in a house, and its floor has two places where water reliably gets past the surface. The first is around the toilet, where a seal that has gone or a flange that was never quite level lets a small amount of water out every flush. The second is the joint at the shower or the tub, where a failed line of caulk or grout lets water run under the edge of the floor rather than off it.
Neither announces itself. A bathroom floor can look sound and be sitting on subfloor that has been slowly rotting for years, and the first visible sign is often a floor that feels slightly soft underfoot or a stain on a ceiling below.
Lifting the old floor is the only way to find out, and it is why a floor replacement is quoted with the caveat that the subfloor is unknown until then. Where it is damaged, it is cut out and replaced. Tiling over a subfloor that flexes guarantees cracked grout and then cracked tile.
Flatness, and Why Tile Is Unforgiving
Once the subfloor is sound it has to be flat. Tile cannot bend, so a dip in the floor becomes stress concentrated at a grout line, and that is where it cracks. Levelling compound or an additional underlayment is routine work rather than an upsell, and in a small room it is quick.
Vinyl is more tolerant of a slightly uneven subfloor but not indefinitely so. A rigid-core plank will bridge a small dip and then telegraph a larger one, and a sheet product will show every imperfection underneath it over time.
This is the part of the job that takes the time and shows none of the result, which is a recurring theme in bathrooms.
Heights, the Toilet Flange and the Doorway
Changing a bathroom floor changes its height, and two details depend on that. The toilet flange has to finish flush with or very slightly above the finished floor so the seal compresses correctly. A floor that has been built up without adjusting the flange leaves the toilet sitting proud of the floor on a seal that is being asked to span a gap, and that is a leak in waiting.
The doorway is the other one. A bathroom floor that is now higher than the hallway needs a threshold that is chosen rather than improvised, and a door that may need trimming at the bottom.
Where the bathroom floor is tiled and the hallway is wood, that transition is a deliberate detail. It is worth deciding at the consultation, because it affects the tile layout at that end of the room.
Tile and Vinyl, Honestly
Tile is the default bathroom floor and it deserves to be. It is impervious, it lasts decades, and it is easy to clean. It is also cold without underfloor heating, hard underfoot, and slow to install because of setting times.
Modern rigid-core vinyl is a real alternative rather than a compromise. It handles water well, it is warmer, it goes down faster, and it costs less. What it cannot do is be refinished, so its life ends with replacement rather than renewal. In a bathroom used by small children or by someone who finds tile uncomfortable to stand on, that trade is often worth making.
Either way you choose and supply the flooring, and the quote covers the labour, the subfloor repair and the materials that go underneath.
Heated Floors, and Why They Are Decided Now or Never
Electric underfloor heating is the one upgrade that has to be decided before the floor goes down, because the mat or cable sits in the thinset under the tile. Adding it afterwards means taking the new floor up again, so it is a now-or-never decision rather than something to revisit.
In a bathroom it is also the upgrade people are most consistently glad of, because the usual complaint about a tiled bathroom floor is that it is cold underfoot first thing in the morning. A small bathroom is cheap to heat, the mat costs little relative to the rest of the job, and the running cost of a floor that is only on for an hour or two a day is modest.
What it needs is a dedicated circuit and a thermostat, which is electrical work and is subcontracted to a licensed trade. That is worth raising at the consultation rather than on the day the tile is being set, because the circuit has to exist before the floor is laid.
It also raises the finished floor height slightly, which feeds back into the two measurements that matter in a bathroom: the toilet flange and the threshold at the door. Neither is a problem when it is planned for.
What Gets Left Alone
A floor replacement is deliberately narrow in scope, and it is worth being clear about what stays. The shower and its waterproofing are untouched, which means a shower that leaks will still leak afterwards. The vanity stays, and so does the wall tile.
Where the new floor meets those things, the joint gets made good. Fresh silicone at the shower base or the tub edge, and the toilet reset on a new seal. Those are part of the job rather than extras, because a new floor with an old seal at its most vulnerable point is a floor that will fail at that point.
If the shower is also due work, doing both together costs less than doing them a year apart, because the floor has to be protected or partly relaid either way.
One of Five Bathroom Services
Floor replacement is one of five ways to work with Hunnu Construction on a bathroom. It runs on its own, or as one stage of a renovation after the tile and before the vanity. For how a bathroom remodel is sequenced, see the main bathroom remodeling page.
Bathroom Flooring Questions
- Can the bathroom floor be replaced on its own?
- Yes. The shower, vanity and tile all stay. The toilet has to come out and go back, which is normal and is the point at which the subfloor beneath it becomes visible.
- Does the toilet have to be removed?
- Yes, for the floor to run properly underneath it and for the flange to be set at the right height relative to the new floor. It also gets a new wax or rubber seal going back, which is not optional.
- What if the subfloor is damaged?
- It frequently is, and the two places to expect it are directly around the toilet and along the shower or tub edge. Soft or delaminated subfloor gets cut out and replaced rather than tiled over, because tile set on a flexing floor will crack along the grout lines.
- Tile or vinyl in a bathroom?
- Tile is the normal answer and handles water indefinitely. Modern rigid-core vinyl is genuinely water resistant, warmer underfoot, quicker to lay and cheaper, and the honest limitation is that it cannot be refinished. Both are reasonable in a bathroom.
- Does the floor height matter?
- Yes, in two places. The toilet flange has to finish at the right level relative to the new floor or the seal will not seat properly, and the threshold at the door has to work with the floor in the hallway.
- Can the floor run into the shower?
- Only if the shower floor is built with its own slope and waterproofing. A continuous-looking floor through a wet room is possible and is a different and more involved detail than tiling a bathroom floor up to a shower curb.
- Do you supply the flooring?
- No. You choose and supply it, and the quote covers labour and construction materials, including any subfloor repair and levelling.
- How long does it take?
- A few days for most bathrooms, with tile needing setting time before the toilet and anything else goes back. Subfloor repair adds to it and cannot be known until the old floor is up.
- Can I have underfloor heating?
- Yes, and it has to be decided before the floor goes down because the mat sits in the thinset under the tile. It needs a dedicated circuit and a thermostat, which is licensed electrical work, so it is worth raising at the consultation rather than later.
- Will a new floor fix a leaking shower?
- No. A floor replacement leaves the shower and its waterproofing untouched. If the shower is the actual problem, the floor is the wrong job, and doing both together costs less than doing them a year apart.
Replace a Bathroom Floor in Renton
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