Tile Installation on Maui
Maui Prestige Flooring installs ceramic, porcelain and natural stone tile floors for Maui homeowners, condo owners, resorts and businesses. Over 16+ years and more than 1,700 flooring jobs, we have set tile on everything from Kahului slabs to raised plantation-era floors on the North Shore.
Tile is the hardest-wearing floor you can put on a slab, and it handles sand, spills and salt air without complaint. When it fails, the cause is almost always what sits underneath it.
So we start below the tile, with flatness checks, crack isolation and the right mortar for the tile size. Then we set, grout and seal to TCNA Handbook methods and back the labor with a 1-year warranty.
Tile and Stone Floors We Install
We install four families of tile and stone floors, and each has its own page with the full detail. The right one depends on the room, the budget and how much water, sand and sun the floor will see.
Ceramic Tile
Glazed ceramic is the budget-friendly tile for kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms and entries. It offers the widest range of colors and patterns, including encaustic-look designs, and needs a PEI 3 rating or higher for most floors.
Porcelain Tile and Wood-Look Plank
Porcelain is dense, absorbs 0.5 percent water or less and works indoors and out. Choose it for large-format tile, wood-look plank that termites ignore, lanais and pool decks.
Natural Stone
Marble, travertine, limestone, slate and basalt bring a look no factory can copy. Stone needs a stiffer floor, careful blending and regular sealing, and it repays that care for decades.
Terrazzo
Terrazzo locks marble, glass or shell chips in an epoxy or cement binder, then grinds them smooth. It suits resort lobbies, retail floors and modern homes that want one seamless, custom floor.
Still deciding whether tile is the right floor at all? Our flooring installation services overview compares tile with vinyl, wood and concrete floors for Maui homes.
Picking Tile Room by Room
The best tile for a room is the one that matches its water, traffic and sun, not only its look. Slip resistance is measured as DCOF (dynamic coefficient of friction) under ANSI A326.3, and 0.42 or higher is the baseline for level indoor floors that get wet.
| Room | Tile we usually recommend | Finish | Slip rating to look for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | Porcelain or PEI 3+ ceramic | Matte or satin | Interior Wet, DCOF 0.42 or higher |
| Bathroom floor | Ceramic, porcelain or honed stone | Matte | Interior Wet, DCOF 0.42 or higher |
| Shower floor | Porcelain or stone mosaic, about 2 x 2 inch | Matte or textured | Interior Wet Plus |
| Entry and foyer | Porcelain, honed stone or terrazzo | Honed or matte | Interior Wet, plus a walk-off mat |
| Covered or open lanai | Textured porcelain, slate or basalt | Structured or cleft | Exterior Wet |
| Pool deck | 2 cm porcelain pavers, tumbled travertine | Textured or tumbled | Exterior Wet |
| Shops, offices, restaurants | Porcelain or terrazzo | Matte or honed | Interior Wet, Oils/Greases in kitchens |
Polished marble and glossy wall tile look great in a showroom and turn slick by a wet lanai slider. On the South Maui coast, where beach sand comes in on every pair of slippers, we steer clients in Kihei and Wailea toward matte finishes that grip when wet and hide fine scratches.
Size matters as much as finish. Small tiles follow the slope of a shower floor, while 24 x 48 inch tiles make an open-plan room look calm but demand a much flatter slab.
What Goes Under the Tile Matters Most
Tile rarely cracks because the tile was bad. It cracks because the slab under it moved, the mortar left hollow spots, or the floor had no room to expand.
Maui slabs serve up all three. Concrete shrinks as it cures, older slabs carry hairline cracks from decades of settling, and tile beside a west-facing slider heats well above the rest of the room every sunny afternoon.
The damage leaves clues. A crack running straight across several tiles usually follows a slab crack, while tiles that lift into a ridge, called tenting, mean the floor was locked in with no movement joints.
Crack isolation
An uncoupling membrane such as Schluter DITRA, or a liquid membrane rated to ANSI A118.12, lets the slab shift slightly without tearing the tile above it.
Mortar coverage
ANSI A108.5 calls for at least 80 percent mortar contact in dry rooms and 95 percent in wet areas and outdoors. We lift tiles during the job to check.
Movement joints
Following TCNA method EJ171, we leave soft joints at walls and through large rooms, filled with flexible sealant instead of grout.
Two more checks happen before any mortar is spread. Slabs are tested for moisture and get a moisture vapor barrier for concrete slabs when readings call for it, and humps or dips are corrected through our subfloor repair and floor leveling service.
Want a warm bathroom floor? An electric heating mat goes in at this stage, under the tile, as part of a radiant heated floor installation.
Planning a tile floor on a Maui slab?
We check flatness, cracks and moisture at the measure, so your quote covers the prep your floor actually needs.
Licensed for Tile Work
Yes, you should hire a licensed contractor for tile. Hawaii requires a contractor license for any job over $1,500 in labor and materials, or any job that needs a permit, and most tile floors cross that line quickly.
Maui Prestige Flooring is licensed and insured and carries workers’ compensation coverage, so an injury on your jobsite does not land on you. Our About Maui Prestige Flooring page explains how to verify any Hawaii contractor license with the DCCA and how our labor warranty works alongside the tile maker’s warranty.
A license is the minimum, not the method. On tile jobs we work to the TCNA Handbook for Ceramic, Glass, and Stone Tile Installation and the ANSI A108 and A118 standards, which are what tile and mortar makers check when a warranty claim comes in.
Setting materials we work with include Schluter, Laticrete, Mapei and Custom Building Products. We keep the membrane, mortar and grout within one maker’s system where possible, so their system warranties line up.
Old Tile Removal and Cracked Tile Repair
Old tile has to come up cleanly before new tile goes down, and it is the loudest, dustiest part of the job. We break out the tile, grind off old thinset or chip out thick mortar beds, and haul it all away so the slab is ready for prep.
Older Maui homes add a wrinkle. Tile is sometimes laid over earlier vinyl tile or black cutback adhesive, and floors from before about 1980 can contain asbestos, so our floor removal and disposal service tests before anything is broken up.
Not every cracked floor needs to go. If only a few tiles are cracked or hollow and you still have spares, our tile floor repair service can cut them out, fix the cause underneath and set matching tiles in their place.
FAQ
Tile Questions
How soon can I walk on new tile?
With a standard polymer-modified thinset, you can walk carefully on new tile after about 24 hours, and we usually grout the next day. Cement grout then needs about 24 hours before normal foot traffic and roughly 72 hours before heavy furniture goes back.
Rapid-setting mortars and grouts cut that to a few hours when a kitchen or a rental turnover cannot wait. Cool, damp homes in Upcountry Maui cure a little slower than a hot Kihei condo, and we plan the schedule around it.
Do you install shower and wall tile too?
Floors are our specialty, including bathroom floors, laundry rooms and the floor tile around tubs and showers. Wall tile such as a kitchen backsplash or a tub surround can often be added to a floor project, so mention it when you book.
We confirm at the measure exactly what fits our scope. If a full shower rebuild is better handled by a dedicated shower contractor, we will tell you plainly.
Get a quote
Book a Tile Measure
Send us the rooms, the rough square footage and a few photos of the floor you have now. We will measure, check the slab and send a written quote for your tile installation.
- Mon to Sat 7am to 9pm, Sun 9am to 9pm
- 1710 W Kaahumanu Ave, Wailuku, HI 96793
- Licensed, insured and backed by a 1-year labor warranty