Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor, Indiana Starts Under the Tile

Burns Harbor is beside the steel mill on Lake Michigan. A lot of the houses here went up in the same years as the plant. Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor often starts in one of those original baths. The tile may still look tight from the doorway. Under it, the shower base and the floor have carried water since the 1960s.

So we start by asking what the pan and the slab are doing under that tile. Because a new finish over a soft base just hides the leak. Then the same water shows up along the subfloor.

How Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor Starts on the Floor

When we open a mill-era bath, we look at the shower base before we talk about tile. Many of these pans use a mortar bed over a liner on a wood subfloor. After decades of showers, the liner can split at the curb or at the drain. Water then sits in the wood under the pan.

We’ve pulled up tile that looked fine and found a pan full of soft mortar. The floor around the toilet and the vanity can be in the same shape. Because those spots take splash and slow leaks for years. So a cover of new tile on the old bed is the wrong first step. We want that base solid before any new tile goes down.

But the houses are not all the same inside. Some baths have a cast concrete base. Others have a mud bed on plywood. When we aren’t sure which one is there, we don’t guess from the hallway.

We sound the floor with a hammer and we look at the drain flange. A hollow spot under the tile is a reason to open that section. A rusted flange is one of the things we note before we cut.

What We See in Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor

People call us after the grout stains, or after the floor feels soft by the tub. At Cabe’s Concrete, we cut the old tile out and look at the base before we plan the finish. When the liner is gone and the wood is wet, we tear that section out. Then Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor means building a new concrete shower base. So we tie the bathroom floor back in and water has one path to the drain.

That tear-out is the main part of the job. We’re a family owned crew, and bath floors are part of the regular work. Concrete removal and a tear out and replace on the pan belong in the same visit. When the damage reaches the wood, we do that. We can handle concrete repair at the edges on that same day. For example, a soft spot under the vanity may need a small slab repair. That can happen while the shower base is open. We also pour slab floors when a bath project grows into a room addition.

Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor and the Rest of the Floor

After the base cures, we set the slope so water moves to the drain. We keep the curb matched to the bathroom floor you already have. But we won’t float a thin coat over a base that moves. Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor depends on that solid base in these older houses.

The same visit can cover more than the shower. We do residential concrete outside the bath too. The walk or the slab at the back door may be part of the plan. You can read more about our bathroom remodeling work if you want the wider list of what we pour. When the back walk is breaking up, we can take that on during the same visit. Our residential concrete covers those slabs and service walks. Finished floors are in the photo gallery if you want to see the surface after the tile goes down.

We’ve stained and epoxied floors in baths where the owner wanted the concrete left as the finish. Overlays can level a low spot outside the shower. Bathroom Remodeling in Burns Harbor still starts with the base under the tile when the finish changes. The drain slope stays at the same pitch we set in the fresh base.