TILE SERVICES

Tile Services

Tiles are they’re a versatile and durable way to elevate any space. At Big Boy Enterprises, we offer exceptional tile services designed to add style, functionality, and lasting value to your property. Whether you’re looking for a timeless design or something bold and modern, tiles offer endless possibilities to suit your aesthetic. Plus, they’re effortless to clean, making them perfect for high-traffic or moisture-prone areas. Being fully licensed, we combine our expertise in tile services, HVAC services, and as trusted general contractors to bring your vision to life.

Our tile solutions not only transform the look of your space but also create healthier environments. Non-porous tiles resist mold, mildew, and allergens, contributing to improved hygiene throughout your home. With fair pricing as a core commitment, we ensure you get remarkable quality without overpaying. From intricate patterns to clean, simple designs, the customization options are nearly limitless. Schedule your services with Big Boy Enterprises today!

Recent Tile Work

Where Tile Fails, and Why

Tile almost never fails because of the tile. It fails because of what is underneath it or what is between it. Four causes account for nearly everything we are called to fix.

Movement. Tile is rigid and buildings are not. A floor that flexes underfoot will crack tile or open grout lines, and no amount of good tiling fixes a substrate that moves. The deflection has to be dealt with first, which sometimes means additional subfloor and sometimes means an uncoupling membrane.

No movement joints. Large tiled areas need a soft joint at the perimeter and at changes of plane, because tile expands and contracts and something has to absorb it. Grouting hard into a corner is why so many showers crack in exactly the same place.

Poor coverage. Adhesive applied so that only the ridges touch the tile leaves voids underneath. It holds fine until something is dropped on it or the corner takes weight, then it cracks. On a floor or a large format tile, back-buttering and full coverage are not optional.

Waterproofing that was never a system. The most expensive of the four, and the subject of its own section below.

Substrate and Preparation

This is where the time goes on a good tile job, and it is invisible in the finished room. The floor has to be flat, which is a different requirement from level, and large format tile is far less forgiving of both than the smaller formats it has replaced. Drywall is not a tile substrate in a wet area and never was. Concrete backer board or a foam board system goes in instead, fastened correctly and with the joints treated.

Older properties here almost always need levelling work. A floor laid in 1978 has settled, and tiling straight onto it produces lippage between tiles that catches the light and, on a floor, catches a toe. Self-levelling compound or a proper mortar bed sorts it, and it is worth the day it takes.

Waterproofing as a System

In a shower, the tile and grout are the wear surface, not the barrier. Water gets through both continuously and slowly. What keeps it out of the framing is a continuous membrane, correctly lapped, sealed at every corner and change of plane, and bonded properly to the drain flange, which is the single most common place it is done badly.

A sheet or liquid membrane system installed as designed, with the manufacturer's own corners, bands and drain components rather than a mixture of products that were never tested together, is what makes the difference. A shower that was waterproofed properly and one that was not look identical on the day it is handed over. You find out which one you have in about four years, and by then the repair is the room rather than the shower.

Heated Floors

Electric in-floor heat under tile is worth doing while the floor is open, because retrofitting it later means taking the tile up again. It matters most in the rooms where tile feels coldest, which here means bathrooms and entries in properties that run cool. The detail that gets missed is the thermostat's floor sensor, which needs to be installed in a conduit so it can be replaced without breaking the floor if it ever fails. It costs nothing to do at installation and is a floor replacement to fix afterwards.

Where We Work

Chase

Most of the village housing dates from the seventies and eighties, and after four or five decades those floors have moved. Levelling and, where the deflection warrants it, additional subfloor is a routine part of a Chase tile job rather than an extra. Tiling a forty-five year old floor as though it were flat is how a beautiful new floor develops a crack across it in the first winter.

Kamloops

Forty minutes west, and a lot more recent construction, which brings the opposite problem. New builds are flat but they also move as they dry and settle in the first years, and large format tile over an engineered floor system needs the movement joints and the uncoupling taken seriously. Kamloops water is also hard enough that grout and glass show it quickly, which is worth factoring into the choice of grout colour and finish rather than discovering later.

Salmon Arm

Thirty-five minutes east, and the widest spread of building type we work with. Older lakeside properties need the preparation work that Chase needs. Newer homes are more often about upgrading builder-grade tiling, where the substrate is sound and the value is in the layout, the setting out and the waterproofing being done to a standard the original never reached.

The Shuswap

Sorrento, Blind Bay, Scotch Creek, Sicamous and the lake communities. Two conditions matter out here and neither applies elsewhere. Many of these buildings are unheated for months, so the substrate goes through a genuine freeze and thaw cycle every year, and the adhesive, grout and movement provision have to be specified for that rather than for a heated house. And plenty of them are cabins and additions on post or pier foundations, which move more than a slab does. Both are manageable, but only if they are accounted for before the first tile goes down.

Common Questions