Tile Installation & Repair in Wake Forest, NC

Refacing rather than removing

Wake Forest has two fireplace situations. The newer developments — Heritage, Wakefield and their generation — frequently have a full-height stone or brick chimney breast in a two-storey great room. The historic core has original fireplaces that are part of what the house is.

For the newer ones, the common request is to bring a dated surround up to date with tile. And the useful thing to know is that demolition is usually the wrong first move.

When building over works

A brick, tile or stone surround that is sound and firmly attached can be furred out or floated to a flat plane and tiled over.

That is better in three ways: no demolition dust travelling through the house, considerably less cost, and nothing behind the surround gets disturbed — which matters, because what is behind a fireplace surround is not always what you would hope.

When it does not

Where the existing surround projects too far. If building over it leaves the finished face standing proud of the surrounding wall, you have created a new problem. Sometimes that can be resolved by bringing the whole wall forward as a feature; sometimes it means the surround has to go.

Where the material is not sound. Loose brick, spalling faces, anything moving. You cannot bond a new surface to a failing one.

Where the substrate cannot take the fixing. This gets checked rather than assumed.

We will look and tell you which you have.

The hearth is not the surround

This is the part people are least often told about, and it matters.

A hearth in front of a working firebox is subject to requirements that come from the appliance and from how the installation was built: minimum dimensions, clearances to combustible materials, and what the hearth material itself has to be. Those are not taste decisions and they are not ours to override.

Where a fireplace is decorative, has been sealed, or has been converted to electric, those constraints largely fall away and the choice opens up considerably.

So the first question on any hearth job is: is this fireplace in use, and what is it? If you have documentation for the appliance, that answers most of it. If you do not, and the firebox is live, that is a question for whoever services it before we specify anything.

Material and movement

Two technical points for tile near heat.

Material tolerance. Porcelain handles heat cycling well. Some natural stones — particularly those with natural fissures or a high iron content — do not, and some can discolour. A dense porcelain in a stone-look finish is frequently the sensible answer where the surround is close to a working firebox.

Movement joints. Anything that heats and cools expands and contracts. Rigid grout across a junction where two materials meet, or at a change of plane, is being asked to absorb movement it cannot. Movement joints go at those junctions — flexible sealant colour-matched to the grout — so expansion has somewhere to go.

That is the same principle as the corners in a bathroom, and it is missed just as often.

The historic core

Around the old centre, original fireplaces are frequently worth leaving exactly as they are. Brick with real age to it reads completely differently from a 1990s builder surround, and tiling over it is a downgrade dressed as an upgrade.

If we think that is the case with yours, we will say so before quoting the work.

Where an original hearth or surround is damaged, repair and matching is the better route. Vintage tile is not made, and salvage or a donor piece from a hidden location is often the answer.

The rest of the tile work

Bathrooms. The same rules apply everywhere: grout does not belong in a corner. Wall-to-wall junctions and the line where a wall meets a shower floor both move, and rigid grout cracks there and keeps cracking. Flexible sealant colour-matched to the grout is the correct detail.

Tap across the tiles before deciding anything — solid and dead means bonded, hollow and drummy means the bond has gone, and in a shower that usually means the substrate is wet.

Backsplashes. The edges and the outlets decide how one looks. Run it to a natural stopping point rather than ending part-way along an open wall, and pack the electrical boxes forward so the cover plates sit flat on the tile face.

Floors. Substrate first. Deflection cracks tile regardless of the quality of the laying, so an uncoupling membrane goes between a wood-framed subfloor and the tile. And for large-format tile the floor has to be genuinely flat, because a big rigid tile cannot follow a floor that dips.

Two-storey rooms. Where a fireplace runs the full height of a great room, tiling the upper section is an access job worked from proper scaffolding rather than a ladder. That setup time is real and it belongs in the quote — which is why it is worth doing everything on that wall in one visit.

Where we stop

Tile work, regrouting, movement joints, sealant, backsplashes, floors and refacing are our work. Anything involving the firebox itself, flue, gas connection, or work requiring a permit goes to the appropriate licensed trade, and you will hear that at the quote.

Getting a price

Photograph the whole fireplace wall from far enough back to see it in the room, a close-up of the existing surround, and one of the hearth. Tell us whether the fireplace is in use, and whether it is wood, gas or electric.

Wake Forest is about three quarters of an hour from us, with no travel surcharge.