Who to hire for a shower that needs regrouting

Short answer

A tiler or a specialist regrouting contractor. It genuinely restores a tired shower and it genuinely does not stop a leak, because grout is not waterproof and never was — the membrane behind the tiles is. If the shower is leaking into another room, regrouting is not the answer.

Plan itThere is time to get more than one quote, which is where the money is.

When it is someone else

Calling the wrong trade costs an attendance fee to be told so. These are the cases where this problem belongs to someone other than a Tiler.

  • a plumber

    there is any sign of water where it should not be. Rule the plumbing out before spending anything on finishes.

What to do before anyone arrives

  1. Establish whether anything is actually leaking. Regrouting a cosmetically tired but sound shower is fine; regrouting a leaking one wastes the money and the fortnight.
  2. Check the silicone at every internal corner and at the floor junction. Those are meant to be flexible sealant rather than grout, and grout in a corner cracks by design.
  3. Look at the floor waste and the fall of the floor. Water pooling against a wall is a fall problem.

What to ask when you book

  • Are you raking out the old grout properly or grouting over it?
  • Are the internal corners being siliconed rather than grouted?
  • Is there any sign the waterproofing has failed, and how would you tell?

What changes the price

No dollar figures here: this directory holds no price data and an invented range is worse than none. What follows is what makes one of these jobs cost more than the same job next door, which is the part you can actually use when comparing quotes.

  • Size of the shower and the tile format — many small tiles is far more grout line than a few large ones.
  • Whether old grout is raked out mechanically.
  • Whether any tiles need replacing at the same time.

What you can do yourself

Is this licensed work?

Not separately licensed in most states. Re-waterproofing a wet area is regulated building work.

There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state the work is happening in.

Licensing thresholds and certificate requirements differ by state and change with amending regulation, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting a figure. The regulator’s own page is the current answer.

Common questions

Who should I hire for a shower that needs regrouting
A tiler or a specialist regrouting contractor. It genuinely restores a tired shower and it genuinely does not stop a leak, because grout is not waterproof and never was — the membrane behind the tiles is. If the shower is leaking into another room, regrouting is not the answer.
Will regrouting stop my shower leaking?
Only if the water was escaping through the grout into a place that could drain, which is a narrow case. Grout is porous cement — it is a joint filler, not a barrier. The barrier is the waterproof membrane under the tiles, and if that has failed, no amount of surface work reaches it.

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Who to hire for

General information about who does what, not advice about your specific job. Licensing, consumer law and council rules differ by state and change; the regulator for your state is the current source. More guides to hiring a tradesperson.