Most Brandon homes built between 1995 and 2015 came with a fiberglass unit or a prefab tile shower that was never designed to outlast the mortgage. Murati Development handles the full replacement — demo and haul-off, substrate inspection, waterproofing membrane, tile installation, and glass and trim coordination. Not just new tile on top of old problems.
A shower remodel in Brandon typically starts with a fiberglass unit or a tiled enclosure installed by the original builder — both of which have a fixed service life. Fiberglass degrades at the gel coat, cracks at stress points, and isn't a substrate you can tile over reliably. Prefab tile surrounds from that era were often set directly on drywall or greenboard with little to no waterproofing behind them. By the time homeowners are calling us, water has usually found its way somewhere it shouldn't be. The demo phase is diagnostic as much as it is demolition — we're looking at what the original installer left behind before we commit to a plan.
The substrate step is where most remodels fail, and it's the one most low-price contractors skip or undercut. After demo and haul-off, we inspect the framing, the subfloor at the curb, and the wall backing for moisture damage, mold, or rot. Any compromised material gets replaced before waterproofing begins. We then install a full waterproofing membrane system — not greenboard, not cement board alone — across the floor, up the walls, and with proper treatment at seams, corners, and the curb. Foam shower pans and sheet membranes applied to the correct specifications create a system that contains water within the assembly rather than relying on grout or caulk as the last line of defense.
Tile installation follows once the waterproofing has been inspected and cured. We coordinate glass enclosure and trim specifications so the finished enclosure closes properly and transitions align with the tile layout. The result is a shower that functions correctly — which, after twenty years in an original builder unit, tends to feel like a considerable upgrade.
Mold behind the tile is a structural problem, not a cleaning problem. In Brandon homes where the original shower surround was installed directly on standard drywall or unfaced greenboard, water vapor migrates through grout lines over years of use. Greenboard is moisture-resistant, not waterproof — it slows absorption but doesn't stop it. Once moisture reaches the paper facing or the framing behind it, mold establishes in a cavity you can't see or reach without tearing out the wall. By the time it's visible at the grout line or around the base of the enclosure, it's typically been growing behind the tile for months. Murati's approach is to replace that backing material entirely and install a sheet membrane or foam pan system that prevents moisture transmission at the source — not at the surface.
Failed waterproofing at the curb produces the most expensive damage. The curb — the threshold between the shower floor and the bathroom floor — is one of the highest-failure points in a prefab or builder-grade shower. Caulk joints at the curb compress and shrink over time, and when the seal fails, water runs laterally under the tile and into the subfloor. In a slab-on-grade home, this means standing water under the tile with nowhere to drain. In a wood-frame home, it means wet framing and eventually a rotted subfloor that needs structural repair before any tile work can happen. We address the curb with a continuous membrane that integrates with the floor waterproofing — no transition joint, no reliance on caulk as the primary seal.
Grout cracking at movement joints is a sign the assembly is shifting. In a properly built shower, movement joints — changes in plane, transitions at the wall-floor junction, and corners — are filled with flexible sealant, not grout. Grout is rigid; it doesn't accommodate the seasonal thermal movement that tile assemblies experience. When builders or low-price contractors grout those corners solid, the tile and grout have nowhere to move. The grout cracks first, then the tile pops at the corner. Water then enters a crack that runs directly to the waterproofing layer — or the absence of one. Murati installs flexible sealant at all movement joints per TCNA guidelines. It's a minor detail with major consequences when it's skipped.
A standard shower remodel in Brandon — demo, substrate work, waterproofing, tile, and trim — typically runs five to eight business days for a single-enclosure replacement. The schedule depends on what's found during demo. If the original installation left moisture damage in the framing or subfloor, that material has to be replaced and dried out before waterproofing begins, which adds time. Waterproofing membrane systems also require a cure period — usually 24 to 48 hours — before tile can be set on top of them. Grout typically needs another 24 to 72 hours before the shower can be used. We build realistic timelines at the estimate stage and don't compress the cure phases to hit an arbitrary completion date.
We assess the framing and substrate condition during demo before anything else moves forward. If we find compromised material — soft framing, rotted subfloor at the curb, mold in the wall cavity — we stop, document what we found, and walk you through the scope change before work continues. Rotted or mold-affected framing has to be replaced; there is no approved method for applying waterproofing membrane to structurally compromised material. In most cases, the additional scope involves sister-framing damaged studs, replacing a section of subfloor, and treating the affected cavity before closing it back up. The cost and timeline impact varies with the extent of the damage, but we won't tile over a problem and hand it back to you — that's how the same issue returns in three years.
Tile-over-tile — setting new tile directly on top of an existing tile installation — is sometimes presented as a budget option. It's not a remodel; it's a patch. The existing waterproofing (or absence of it) stays in place, the substrate condition is unknown, and you're adding weight to a wall or floor assembly that wasn't engineered to carry it. Tiles set over existing tile also have adhesion issues if the original installation has hollow spots or the surface isn't mechanically keyed properly. The tile-over-tile approach typically costs 30 to 50 percent less upfront and fails in two to five years — at which point you're doing the full demo and proper install you skipped the first time, plus any remediation for water damage that accumulated in the interim. We don't offer tile-over-tile installations. The cost of a proper remodel reflects the substrate work, the waterproofing system, and a result that holds for decades.
Tell us your scope — shower size, current unit type, and what you're looking for — and we'll give you a straight assessment of what the project involves and what it costs.
Request a Proposal