You know what’s scary? Most people can’t really tell whether a job was done well or not. I work in remodeling, specializing in tile. Here’s one story from my practice.
This was at the end of 2023. We came to a project. The client only wanted us to do the floors. The shower had already been tiled, as well as the backsplash above the sink.
“I just need the floors,” the client said.
I walk in, take a look from a distance, and right away I can see something’s off. The tile is scratched, covered in dried grout. If it were smooth tile, maybe you could try to clean it. But half of it had a stone-like texture, and the hardened grout was packed deep into the relief.
“What happened with your tile?” I asked.
“What do you mean? Can you take a look?”
“Well, for starters, it’s covered in grout, and good luck cleaning that out of the texture. The adhesive is sticking out, it’s crooked, and the tiles are scratched up as if someone dragged a knife over them.”
“Wow… anything else?”
“Look at the corners. Normally you cut tiles at 45 degrees so they meet cleanly. Here they just stacked them, so you see the brown inside of the tile. Are you okay with that look?”
“I honestly never thought about it. I figured that’s just how it’s done.”
Just to be sure, I pulled out a level right in front of the client and checked the vertical. Spoiler: it wasn’t straight at all.
For me, this job looked straight out of a horror movie. But the client thought it was fine. He had nothing to compare it to. He trusted the “pros” and assumed this was normal.
Then I noticed an unfinished section of tile where the wall was exposed and prepped for installation. But there was no waterproofing layer. In the shower!
I kept checking and found out there was zero waterproofing—neither on the floor nor the walls. That meant water and steam would seep into the wood, leading to mold and rot.
Give it a couple of years (by my estimate, less than that), and the client could’ve ended up crashing through the floor with the shower.
Since the walls were already tiled without waterproofing, there was no proper way to build a shower pan.
This wasn’t just amateur work. It felt like someone was laying tile for the first time in their life.
Naturally, the client’s first question after I pointed all this out:
“Can you redo it?”
“Of course. But you’ll have to accept that the previous work was money down the drain. Plus, you’ll need to pay extra for demolition.”
He agreed immediately. And that was another surprising part. He could afford any level of renovation—he wasn’t trying to save money. But for some reason, fate first led him to someone who didn’t know what they were doing.
To be fair, fate then led him to me. But the main point is the same as at the start of my story: most people simply can’t judge whether a specialist did a job properly.
So we agreed, and my team of three—plumber, tiler, and foreman—got to work.
First we ripped out all the tile (again, money wasted). Turned out it was stuck directly onto drywall. Then we moved to the concrete shower base (the recessed part with the drain). Underneath, the plywood had rotted so badly it could barely hold weight.
And here’s the scariest part: you didn’t need to wait years. That floor could’ve collapsed under the homeowner within a week or two.
We cleared out the debris and replaced the plywood subfloor.
Inside the walls, the plumbing was just as bad as the tile. Flexible pipes were twisted, poorly fastened, shower valves weren’t level. We had to rip it all out and redo it from scratch.
Honestly, if the client hadn’t asked us to redo everything, we would’ve walked away from the job. It would’ve been like a patient with a rotten, infected tooth asking a dentist to just slap a filling on top. The consequences could’ve been dangerous.
Once the plywood and plumbing were fixed, we moved on to waterproofing. Schluter shower pan on the floor, GoBoard on the walls. Perfectly straight, sealed with silicone. Now no moisture could reach the wood.
Laying tile on perfectly flat, prepped surfaces is a joy. After that it was just standard, proper work—not worth bragging about: even spacing, clean joints, correct slope for drainage.
The whole job took ten days, including demolition and the floors we came for in the first place.
And yeah, it’s terrifying that in this business there are so many contractors who can sell themselves well but leave behind work that’s dangerously bad. Clients can’t judge the technical side—but everyone notices good service. That’s why smooth talkers often win, while real quality comes later.
The client ended up hiring us again for another bathroom—but that’s another story.
Since that case, I’ve started offering a free “audit” service: a professional second opinion. It doesn’t take much time, but it can save people a lot of pain. Sometimes I can spot issues just by looking at the proposal or the list of materials.
And it feels great when I see that the work was done properly: the client’s happy, and I even ask for the crew’s contacts, just in case. But honestly? That happens maybe one time out of five. In the other cases: two times I give the client a checklist of issues to bring up, and two times we have to redo the work completely before it causes serious problems.