- Tub surround tile work: $2,000 flat.
- Kitchen backsplash tile work: $1,000 flat, labor.
- Tile floors: $3 per square foot labor, or $2 per square foot labor on jobs of 2,000 square feet or more.
Bathroom floor tile in Salado custom homes on Salado Creek
Salado sits on Salado Creek just off I-35 south of Belton. Homes here tend to be custom, not tract boxes, with stone and porcelain on the bathroom floor more often than builder ceramic. Genaro Merlan drives over from Killeen to look at the actual room and measure it. Historic main street houses and new custom work both need the same things from a floor: a substrate that does not bounce, a layout that looks right from the doorway, and cuts that finish clean at the vanity and the casing. Tile comes from the Temple supply house, so the piece you pick is the piece that goes down.
The work is bathroom floor tile, not the shower walls. Floors take a different set of problems. Subfloor deflection cracks grout on marble and large porcelain. Toilet flanges sit too low or too high once tile and thinset add thickness. A hallway threshold has to meet wood or vinyl without a trip edge. We set, grout, seal, and clean up behind us. The same people who look at the room are the people who set the tile. Call (512) 297-7493 or email info@merlanstile.com to talk through the room.
Subfloor flatness, toilet flange height, and layout from the doorway
Bathroom floors in Salado fail when the plywood or the slab is not flat, or when the joists bounce. Thinset does not fill a dish in the middle of a room. We look at the floor with a straightedge. High spots get ground. Low spots get patched. A floor that moves too much needs a conversation before anyone opens a box of marble. After the tile is on, the toilet flange has to land at the right height so the wax ring seals. Too low and the closet bolt area leaks. Too high and the bowl rocks. That height is planned before the first tile goes down, not after. Layout starts from the line you see when you walk in, usually the doorway or the long run past the vanity, not from a crooked wall. Walls in older houses in the village are rarely square. Small mosaic on a floor that is out of flat will telegraph every dip. Large porcelain will lip.
- Straightedge the subfloor before any thinset
- Plan toilet flange height for tile plus thinset thickness
- Undercut door casing so tile tucks under the wood
- Set the hallway threshold last to match the next floor
Measuring a Salado bathroom floor and the published labor rate
Labor on tile floors is $3 per square foot. On jobs of 2,000 square feet or more the labor rate is $2 per square foot. Those are labor figures only. Tile, thinset, grout, and sealer are separate. Merlan's Tile buys tile out of the Temple supply house, or you bring your own, and what gets picked is what gets set. A single bathroom floor in a Salado custom home is not 2,000 square feet. The $3 labor number is the one that applies. No other floor rate is used on this work.
Take a tape. Measure the long wall of the bathroom in feet and inches, then the short wall. Convert inches to a decimal or keep it simple and round to the next half foot. Multiply length times width. That product is your square footage. Alcoves, the space beside the tub, and the floor in front of the toilet all count because tile covers them. A vanity that sits on the floor still has tile cut around the base. A wall hung vanity usually gets tile underneath. Skip the tub well and the shower if those floors are not being tiled with the rest of the bath. Write the number down. That is how a homeowner prices the labor without waiting on a floor quote.
Picking porcelain or stone at the Temple supply house then setting the floor
We start by looking at the room and measuring the actual space, not a drawing from a phone. You pick the tile. Bring what you already bought, or come to the Temple supply house with us. Porcelain, ceramic, marble, terrazzo, and mosaic all get used on bathroom floors in this village. Brass and satin edge profiles finish the doorway and any step at the hall when the job calls for them. Salado work leans toward stone and custom layouts more than a tract bath. Once the material is on site we set it. Then we grout it. Sealer goes on when the tile needs it, which marble and some natural stone do, and many glazed porcelains do not. Cleanup is part of the job. The mess leaves with us.
On a job like this the floor work tends to run across more than one day because thinset needs to firm up before grout, and grout needs to set before heavy traffic. Usually the toilet is out of the way so the field can run through. Door casing gets undercut with a jamb saw so the tile tucks under instead of a sloppy scribe against painted wood. The threshold into the hallway is set last so the height matches whatever floor is already out there, wood, vinyl plank, or existing tile. Reducers, stair nose, and thresholds are part of the flooring work. Stair nose does not show up in a bathroom, but a reducer or a marble saddle often does. Scheduling is arranged on the phone. A web page cannot give you a start date.
One-year limited labor warranty and the drive from Killeen to Salado
Every installation carries a written one-year limited labor warranty from the date of completion. It covers issues arising from the original installation. It does not cover materials. Those fall under the manufacturer's own warranty. It does not cover modifications made after the installation is complete. A tile that loses bond because the mud bed or the thinset was wrong is a labor issue. A crack that follows a joist that was always going to move is a different conversation, and we would rather have that talk before the floor goes down. Read the paper we leave with you. Keep it.
Merlan's Tile is based in Killeen, Texas. Owner is Genaro Merlan. Trades are tile, flooring, and roofing. Flooring covers tile, vinyl plank, and the transitions that finish it. The service area runs out from Killeen through Harker Heights, Copperas Cove, Nolanville, Belton, Temple, Salado, Georgetown, Round Rock, Waco and Austin. Salado is the drive south of Belton, just off I-35, the village on Salado Creek. Phone is (512) 297-7493. Email is info@merlanstile.com. The people who look at the bath are the people who set the floor. Showers, tub surrounds, and other bath work that is not a floor get a straight quote after we look at the room. Floor labor stays on the published numbers already stated.