Bathroom Tiling In Exeter
Is the tiling the part you are most worried about?
Set-out planned from the sightlines in, on boarded and primed substrates, with cuts landing where they should.
Tiling is the part of a bathroom everyone looks at and almost nobody understands. The tile itself is rarely the reason a room looks right or wrong - the set-out is. Where the first full tile lands, which corner takes the cuts, whether a course lines up with the top of the door frame. All of that is decided before any adhesive is mixed, and it cannot be fixed afterwards.
Ask About Tiling
Tell us a little about the room and we will come back to you to arrange a visit. No obligation, and no pressure to decide on the day.
The Case For It
What Good Tiling Is Actually About
Set-out planned from where you stand
We work out the sightlines first - the wall you see from the door, the wall behind the basin - and set out so full tiles land there and cuts finish in the corners.
Substrate boarded and primed properly
Tile is only as good as what it is stuck to. Failing plaster, old adhesive beds and unprimed board are the three most common reasons tiling comes away.
Large format dry-laid before fixing
Large-format porcelain and natural stone get laid out on the floor first so veining runs the way it should and book-matched pairs actually match.
Movement joints where they belong
Tiled surfaces move, particularly over underfloor heating and at wall-to-floor junctions. Silicone in the right places prevents the cracking that grout cannot.
Natural stone sealed and understood
Marble, travertine and limestone are porous and each behaves differently. They need the right sealer, the right adhesive and honest advice about maintenance before you commit.
Tanking under the tile, as a system
In showering areas the waterproofing goes on before the tile and is a single named system throughout. Tile and grout are not waterproof - they never were.
- High-End Projects
- 100+ High-End Projects
- Workmanship
- Guaranteed Workmanship
- Design Consultations
- Free Design Consultations
- Team, Start To Finish
- One Team, Start To Finish
Before You Choose
Judging Tiling Before It Is Too Late To Change
Ask to see the set-out before fixing starts. A tiler who knows what they are doing will happily walk you round the room and show you where the first full tile goes, which corner takes the cut, and how the courses relate to the door frame, the window reveal and the top of the shower screen. If the answer is that they will "start in the corner and see how it goes", you already know how it will look.
Ask what is going on the wall behind the tile. In a wet area the answer should be a tile backer board, mechanically fixed and with joints taped, sitting under a named tanking system. On dry walls, sound plaster properly primed is fine. What is not fine is tiling onto old adhesive, onto unprimed plasterboard in a wet zone, or onto plaster that is already hollow-sounding.
For natural stone, ask three specific things: which sealer, how many coats, and what happens to the cut edges. Marble and limestone are porous and will stain from anything acidic if they are not sealed and maintained. A tiler who is comfortable with stone will discuss honed versus polished finishes, whether your chosen stone is suitable for a floor at all, and how it should be cleaned. One who says stone is the same as porcelain has not laid much of it.
Compared
Choosing Between Tile Materials
All four are legitimate. The differences are in maintenance and in how they behave underfoot and in a shower.
| Porcelain | Natural stone | Ceramic | Large-format porcelain | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water absorption | Very low, under 0.5% | Porous - needs sealing | Higher than porcelain | Very low |
| Suitable for floors | Yes | Depends on the stone and finish | Wall use mainly | Yes |
| Maintenance | Minimal | Resealing, and no acidic cleaners | Minimal | Minimal, fewer grout lines |
| Look | Excellent stone and concrete effects | Genuine depth and variation nothing replicates | Wide colour and glaze range | Near-continuous surface |
| Installation demands | Standard | Careful handling, dry-lay, correct adhesive | Straightforward | Flat substrate essential, two people to set |
| Indicative supplied cost per m² | £30 - £90 | £70 - £250 | £20 - £50 | £60 - £160 |
Our Process
How An Exeter Bathroom Project Runs
Seven stages, in this order, every time. Most of the problems we get called in to fix on other people's work come from skipping straight from strip-out to tiling.
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Design consultation and measured survey
We come to the house, measure the room properly, and ask how you actually use it - who uses it, at what time of day, and what irritates you about it now. Where we can get a look behind panelling or under a bath, we do, because that is where the surprises live.
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Drawn layouts and full specification
You get two or three layouts to look at, not one. Alongside them, a written specification naming every tile, valve, tap and light - so the quote is for a defined room rather than a vague intention.
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Fixed written quote
Itemised, VAT inclusive, with the specification attached. If the survey turned up something that might need attention once the walls are open, it is written down as a possibility with a cost, rather than sprung on you later.
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Strip-out and first fix
Old suite out, back to the substrate. Pipework and cabling re-routed to suit the new layout, with electrics kept to the correct zones for a bathroom. This is the stage where an older property tells you the truth about its plumbing.
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Substrate, tanking and falls
Walls and floors boarded and primed. Wet areas tanked as a complete system rather than a coat of paint near the tray. In a wet room the falls are formed and checked with a level before any tile is cut.
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Tiling and set-out
Set-out is planned from the sightlines you will actually stand and look at, so full tiles land on the focal wall and cuts finish in the corners. Large-format and book-matched stone is dry-laid first to get the veining right.
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Second fix, commissioning and handover
Sanitaryware and brassware fitted, thermostatic valves balanced to the pressure your house genuinely has, extraction tested against the required rate. Then we walk the room with you, hand over the warranties in your name, and leave a care guide for the finishes.
Detail
Why Set-Out Is Decided Before Anything Is Ordered
Set-out determines the tile quantity, which is why it has to happen before ordering rather than after. Centring a wall means both end cuts are equal and usually generous; starting from one corner means one edge is full and the opposite edge might land on a fifteen-millimetre sliver, which looks like a mistake because it is one. Getting this right can change the order quantity by a full box, and getting it wrong on a book-matched stone that has been cut from a specific slab cannot be recovered at all.
Floors add another layer. Tile courses ideally relate to the door threshold and to the drain position in a wet area, and where underfloor heating is going in, the movement joints need planning around the heated zone. Over a suspended timber floor - the norm in Exeter's period stock - the deflection question comes first, because a floor that moves will crack tiles regardless of how well they were fixed.
None of this is visible in a finished room, which is exactly why it gets skipped. If your project involves a fully tanked floor, the sequence is covered on our wet rooms page, and if the substrate is an unknown quantity, that is renovation territory.
Reassurance
What Our Guarantee Actually Covers
- The workmanship, not just the products
- Manufacturers cover their own goods. What usually fails on a bathroom is the work around them - a tray that was not bedded, a valve set to the wrong pressure, tanking that stopped short of the door. That is the part we stand behind.
- Tanking and falls in wet areas
- Any fully tiled shower area or wet room we build is tanked as a system and the falls are set and checked before tiling. Water finding its way into a floor void is the single most expensive bathroom failure there is.
- Manufacturer warranties passed to you
- Every warranty on your sanitaryware, brassware and shower valves is registered in your name and handed over in writing at the end of the job, along with the specification of what was actually installed.
- Anything we got wrong, we come back for
- If something we installed is not right, we return and put it right. Most of our enquiries come from people who were let down by someone who stopped answering the phone.
Budget
What Bathroom Tiling Costs In Exeter
£3,000 – £12,000
The range covers labour, substrate preparation, tanking where needed, adhesives, grouts and sealing - not the tiles themselves, which vary too widely to fold in. Natural stone, large formats and anything laid to a pattern all take longer to set out and lay.
Guide range based on recent Exeter projects, VAT included. Your figure comes from the survey and written specification, not from this page.
Full cost breakdownQuestions
Tiling Questions
- Should I tile floor to ceiling?
- In a small room, usually yes - it makes the space read as taller and there is no tile-to-paint line to go grubby. In a larger bathroom, part-tiling with a good moisture-resistant paint above can look less clinical and costs less. It is a design decision, and we will show you both on the elevations.
- Is natural stone a bad idea in a family bathroom?
- Not bad, but it is a commitment. Marble and limestone are porous, stain from anything acidic, and need resealing periodically. If that sounds like a chore, a good porcelain stone-effect is genuinely excellent now and we will not think less of the choice. If you want the real depth of stone, we will tell you exactly what looking after it involves.
- What size tile suits a small bathroom?
- Larger than most people expect. Fewer grout lines make a small room feel bigger, and a 600 by 600 or larger format works well provided the substrate is flat enough to take it. The old advice about small tiles in small rooms is backwards.
- How long does tiling take?
- For a typical bathroom, three to five days for walls and floor, plus grouting and sealing. Large formats and natural stone take longer because of the set-out and the dry-laying. It cannot be rushed at the end - adhesive needs to cure before grouting or the grout will crack.
- Do you tile over underfloor heating?
- Yes, and it is a good combination as long as the movement joints and the adhesive are right. Flexible adhesive is essential, the heating must be commissioned and then left off until the adhesive has fully cured, and perimeter movement joints have to be respected rather than grouted over.
- Will the grout go black?
- Grout in a shower will discolour eventually - it is cementitious and porous. Good ventilation slows it down more than anything else, a darker grout hides it, and epoxy grout resists it almost entirely at the cost of being harder to work with. Silicone at the internal corners rather than grout is also important, because grout in a moving junction will crack and then stain.
Feedback
What Clients Say
Rated 5 out of 5
“We had put off doing the main bathroom for years because the house is Georgian and we were nervous about what was behind the panelling. They took the whole wall back, found the old lead feed we suspected was there, and re-ran it properly before any tiling started. The set-out on the marble is what sells the room - the cuts all land in the corners.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Our en-suite is a small room in a Victorian villa with a horrible drainage run. Three other firms told us a wet room was not possible. This lot spent an hour with a laser level working out the falls, then built it. Two years on there is no movement and no damp anywhere near the joists.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“What I appreciated most was the drawings. We saw three layouts before committing, including one that moved the door - which we would never have thought of and which made the whole room work. Being able to see it properly first was worth every penny of the design fee.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Freestanding bath on a first floor in a 1930s semi, so the joists needed checking and doubling up in one place. They flagged it on the survey rather than discovering it halfway through, which is presumably why the quote did not move once. Filler position was marked out and agreed before the floor went back down.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“The thing nobody warns you about is the dust. They sheeted the landing and the stairs every single morning and hoovered before they left. Eleven working days, one team, same two faces throughout. My neighbour has now booked them.”
Coverage
Areas We Cover
We work across Exeter and out into East and Mid Devon. If your town is not listed, it is still worth asking - the practical limit is travel time rather than a fixed radius.
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Come And Look At Some Samples
No showroom to walk around and no sales appointment to sit through. We come to the house, measure up, and tell you honestly what the room can and cannot do.