What makes the best tiling contractor in Mumbai: full bedding, true levels, straight joints and planned cuts, a scorecard for ranking flooring contractors, and the red flags to spot early.
If you are looking for the best tiling contractor in Mumbai, you are really looking for something you cannot see once the job is done. A finished floor looks much the same on the day it is handed over whether it was laid well or badly. The difference is underneath: whether every tile sits on a full bed or on a few dabs of mortar, whether the floor runs true from room to room, whether the joints were set out from a line or from whichever wall the tiler started at. Those decisions show up months or years later, as hollow tiles that crack, lippage that catches a foot, joint lines that wander across a long corridor, and slivers of cut tile at the doorway everyone walks through.
This article explains what top tiling and flooring workmanship actually looks like, how to rank tiling contractors on it, and the red flags to watch for. It is written by Chamunda Constructions, a civil and finishing contractor in Kandivali West founded in 2004 by Bhadresh Chavda, for whom tiles and flooring are a core part of the work. We are one of the contractors being ranked, so we have published the criteria and named no other firm. For choosing the tile itself, see our guide to vitrified, ceramic and natural stone floor tiles; for wall tiling, see our guide to dado and wall cladding. This piece is about the laying.
What the best tiling contractor in Mumbai does differently
Most tilers in Mumbai can make a floor look good on the day. The best ones make it stay good. They do it through four habits that cost very little extra money but a great deal of attention: full bedding under every tile, levels carried from a single datum through the whole flat, joints set out from a struck line so they run straight, and cuts planned so they land where nobody looks. Add proper preparation of the base, movement joints where they are needed, curing and protection, and a contractor who checks for hollows before handing over, and you have most of what separates excellent flooring from ordinary flooring.
The tiling scorecard: seven criteria, one hundred points
- Bedding method and coverage: 20 points.
- Levels, flatness and falls: 20 points.
- Set-out, joints and cuts: 15 points.
- Base preparation and wet-area coordination: 15 points.
- Supervision and consistency across rooms and flats: 10 points.
- Protection, curing and handover checks: 10 points.
- Track record you can inspect: 10 points.
As with our other scorecards, price is deliberately excluded. Score the contractors, discard the weak ones, then compare prices among the rest.
Criterion 1: full bedding, not corner dabs (20 points)
The single most common tiling defect in Mumbai flats is the hollow tile. Tap it with a coin or a knuckle and it sounds different from its neighbours: a dull, drummy note instead of a solid one. Underneath is a void, because the tile was set on a few dabs of mortar at the corners or on a bed that did not reach its whole back. A hollow tile may look fine for years, until a wardrobe is dragged across it, a heavy object is dropped on it, or the slab moves slightly, and then it cracks along the unsupported area. In a wet area, the void can also hold water.
Full bedding means the whole back of the tile is in contact with the adhesive or mortar. For modern tiles laid in adhesive, that means spreading adhesive with a notched trowel of the right size for the tile, combing it in one direction, and bedding the tile down firmly so the ridges collapse into a continuous layer. For large-format tiles, it usually also means back-buttering, spreading a thin coat on the back of the tile itself, because a large tile is almost never perfectly flat and the floor under it is never perfectly flat either. For tiles laid on a traditional mortar bed, it means a bed of even, adequate thickness under the whole tile, with cement slurry, and the tile beaten down until it is fully seated.
- Ask how the tiles will be bedded: adhesive or mortar, notched trowel or dabs, back-buttered or not.
- Ask what trowel size will be used for your tile size.
- Watch the first few tiles being laid, and ask the tiler to lift one after bedding to show the coverage on its back.
- After laying, tap the floor across its whole area. Hollow tiles should be lifted and relaid before grouting.
Scoring guide: full marks for a contractor who describes full-bed laying without being prompted, back-butters large formats and checks for hollows before handover; half for one who beds properly when asked; low marks for one who defends corner dabs as standard practice.
Criterion 2: levels, flatness and falls (20 points)
A good floor is level where it should be level and falls where it should fall. In living rooms, bedrooms and corridors, the floor should be flat and true, with no step at the door thresholds and no lippage, meaning adjacent tile edges standing proud of each other. In bathrooms, balconies and wash areas, it should fall consistently to the outlet so water drains instead of standing.
Achieving this starts with a single datum, a reference level marked on the walls of every room, usually with a laser or water level, and carried through the whole flat. Every floor is laid to that datum, so the living room, the bedroom and the corridor meet at the same height and the thresholds are flush. Without a datum, each room is laid to its own idea of level and the differences appear at the doorways. Within a room, the tiler checks flatness with a straightedge as he goes, and uses levelling clips or wedges where the tile format calls for them to control lippage.
- Ask how levels will be carried between rooms, and whether a datum will be marked before tiling starts.
- Ask how the fall will be set in wet areas, and check it by pouring water on the finished floor.
- Run a straightedge or long spirit level across the finished floor and look for gaps under it.
- Slide a hand or a sheet of paper across tile edges to feel for lippage.
Scoring guide: full marks for a datum carried through every room, flatness checked during laying and consistent falls in wet areas; half for good levels within rooms but steps between them; low marks for levels judged by eye.
Criterion 3: set-out, joints and cuts (15 points)
Set-out is the decision about where the tiles go before any are laid, and it decides how the floor looks for the rest of its life. The careful approach is to measure the room, find its centre lines, dry-lay a row or two in each direction, and then adjust the starting point so that cuts at the edges are of reasonable size and fall at the least visible walls. A room is rarely square, so the set-out also decides where the inevitable taper goes. The careless approach is to start at the doorway wall with a full tile and see what happens at the far side, which usually means a thin sliver of tile along one wall and joints that run visibly off the line of the room.
Joints should be set out from a struck line, not from the edge of the previous tile, so they stay straight across a long corridor or a large living room. Joint width should be consistent, controlled with spacers, and suited to the tile: rectified tiles can take very fine joints, while tiles with less precise edges need a wider joint to hide the variation. Where the floor continues from one room into the next, the joint lines should carry through the doorway rather than stopping and restarting.
- Ask to see the set-out before tiling starts, especially in the living room, corridor and entrance.
- Check that cuts at the doorway and the main sightline are not slivers.
- Sight along a long joint line on the finished floor; it should be straight.
- Check that joint widths are even and that joints line up through doorways.
- Look at cuts around pipes, door frames and floor traps: they should be neat, close and not chipped.
Criterion 4: base preparation and wet-area coordination (15 points)
Tiles are only as good as what they sit on. In a new building, the base is usually a screed or the slab itself, and it has to be sound, clean and close to level before tiling starts. In a renovation, the question is whether to lay over the old floor or break it out. Laying over old tiles can be acceptable in a dry room if the old floor is sound, fully bonded and level, and if the added height does not create problems at doors and thresholds. If the old floor has hollow or cracked tiles, the new floor will inherit the problem. In wet areas, laying new tiles over old ones in a bathroom that is leaking simply hides the leak.
In bathrooms and other wet areas, tiling is inseparable from waterproofing. The tiler has to bring the floor to the right fall over a screed that protects the membrane, avoid damaging the membrane when setting the trap or drilling for fittings, and bring the wall tiles down over the turn-up so that no edge is left exposed. A tiling contractor who also does the waterproofing, or works for the same contractor that does, owns this junction. We explain why that matters in our guide to ranking bathroom waterproofing contractors in Mumbai.
Criterion 5: supervision and consistency (10 points)
A single tiler can lay a beautiful room. The question for a whole flat, or a whole building, is whether every room matches. Consistency comes from the same set-out routine, the same datum, the same bedding method and the same supervisor checking the work in every room, rather than from the talent of whichever tiler happens to be there. On building projects, where several tiling teams work at once, supervision is what stops the building from having as many standards as it has teams.
Ask who supervises the tiling day to day and whether that person works for the contractor. Ask how a new tiler on the team is brought up to the standard.
Criterion 6: protection, curing and handover checks (10 points)
A freshly laid floor is vulnerable. It needs time for the adhesive or mortar to set before it is walked on heavily, and time before grouting. After grouting, it needs to be cleaned before haze hardens on the surface. And until handover, it needs protecting from other trades: carpenters, painters, plumbers and electricians all cross it with tools and materials. Floors that are not covered collect scratches, chips and paint splashes, each of which becomes a snag and an argument.
- Ask how long the floor will be kept off before foot traffic, and before grouting.
- Ask how the floor will be protected once laid, and until when.
- Ask whether the contractor taps every floor for hollows and checks lippage before handover, and whether it replaces defective tiles before you inspect.
- Ask for spare tiles from the same batch to be left with you for future repairs.
Criterion 7: a track record you can inspect (10 points)
Tiling is one of the easiest trades to inspect years later, which makes a visitable track record especially valuable. Ask for a flat or building the contractor tiled several years ago. Tap the floors for hollows. Look for cracked tiles along lines of heavy traffic, lippage at edges, and joint lines along corridors. Check the thresholds between rooms. A floor that is still sound, flat and quiet under the coin after several years is the best evidence a tiling contractor can offer.
Joints and grout: small lines, big consequences
Grout is often treated as the last, least important step. It is not. The joint is what the eye reads across a floor, and the grout is what stops water and dirt getting beneath the tiles. Cement-based grouts are widely used and perform well in dry rooms when properly mixed and packed. Epoxy grouts are harder, more stain-resistant and much less absorbent, which makes them a sensible choice in kitchens, bathrooms and other wet or heavily used areas, though they demand more skill to apply cleanly. Whatever is used, the joints should be cleaned out before grouting, the grout packed fully to the joint depth, and the surface cleaned before it sets.
Grout colour is a design decision with practical consequences. Very light grout in a busy area will show dirt quickly. A grout colour close to the tile makes joints recede; a contrasting one makes them a feature, which is only a good idea if they are perfectly straight.
Movement joints: the defect most tilers do not think about
Floors move slightly with temperature, moisture and the settling of the building. Over large areas, such as entrance lobbies, long corridors, open-plan living areas and balconies exposed to the sun, that movement has to go somewhere. Where there are no movement joints, the stress builds up until tiles crack or lift, sometimes in a dramatic line across the floor. Good practice is to leave a gap at the perimeter where the floor meets the walls, hidden by the skirting, and to provide movement joints at intervals across large floors and over any structural joints in the slab below. These are filled with a flexible sealant rather than rigid grout.
Ask a tiling contractor where they would place movement joints in your space. If the answer is that they are not needed, be cautious, particularly for lobbies and larger areas. Our article on entrance lobby renovation for residential buildings covers this for common areas.
Large-format tiles need a different standard
Large-format vitrified tiles and slabs have become popular in Mumbai flats because they reduce the number of joints and give a clean, open look. They are also much less forgiving. A large tile will show any unevenness in the base as lippage at its edges, and because it is rarely perfectly flat itself, it needs full bedding from both sides to avoid voids. It is heavier and more fragile to handle, so it breaks more easily in transit and in cutting. And a single hollow under a large tile is a larger area of unsupported tile.
A contractor who is good at laying smaller tiles is not automatically good with large formats. Ask specifically whether they have laid your tile size before, whether they use levelling systems and back-buttering, and where you can see an example.
Skirting, thresholds and the edges people notice
The edges of a floor are where most visible defects gather. Skirting tiles should sit tight to the floor and the wall, with joints that align with the floor joints where possible and neat mitred or finished corners. Thresholds between rooms should be flush, or where a change of level is unavoidable, finished with a proper profile rather than a sharp tile edge. At bathroom doors, the threshold detail matters for water as well as looks, because it decides whether water on the bathroom floor stays there. Door frames should be undercut or neatly cut around rather than leaving an uneven gap. A contractor who pays attention to these edges is almost always paying attention elsewhere too.
How the types of tiling contractor rank
In Mumbai, you will usually be choosing between four kinds of tiling contractor. On the scorecard above, a typical competent example of each tends to fall in this order. These are our judgements of types, not scores for any named firm.
- 1. A finishing contractor with its own supervised tiling teams, who also handles waterproofing and base preparation: strongest on consistency, wet-area coordination and handover checks, because the tiling is part of a supervised sequence.
- 2. A specialist tiling contractor with its own teams: often very strong on workmanship and set-out, but in wet areas the junction with waterproofing belongs to someone else.
- 3. A tiling gang paid by area, arranged through a supplier or a middleman: can be skilled, but the rate rewards speed, supervision is usually absent, and bedding and set-out tend to suffer.
- 4. An individual tiling mistri: often excellent for small areas and repairs, less suited to a whole flat or building where consistency and coordination matter.
A skilled individual mistri can outrank a careless contractor, which is why you should score every firm on its own evidence. But on whole-flat and whole-building work, structure matters, and the contractor with supervised teams and ownership of the wet areas usually comes out ahead.
Batches, shades and wastage
Tiles are manufactured in batches, and two batches of the same design can differ visibly in shade, and sometimes slightly in size. A floor laid from mixed batches can show a patchwork of tones that only becomes obvious once the room is lit and furnished. A careful tiling contractor checks the batch and shade codes on every box before laying, keeps each room or area to a single batch, and tells you early if the delivery is mixed so it can be exchanged before anything is fixed.
Wastage is the other half of this. Every floor needs some extra tiles for cuts and breakages, and the right allowance depends on the room shapes, the tile size and the layout pattern. A diagonal layout or a room with many corners needs more than a simple rectangle. A contractor who calculates this against your actual rooms, rather than adding a round figure, saves you both an emergency reorder, which may not match the original batch, and a heap of unused tiles. Keeping a few spare tiles from the same batch after the job is finished is sensible, because a cracked tile replaced from a different batch years later will rarely match.
Staircases, steps and changes of level
Wherever a floor changes level, workmanship becomes a safety matter as well as an appearance one. On staircases, the finished risers must be equal across the whole flight, because an uneven riser is exactly the step people trip on, and the nosing line must be consistent and grippy. At sunken balconies, raised platforms and bathroom thresholds, the edge detail decides whether the step is visible and safe. We cover staircases in detail in our article on staircase finishing with granite, marble and Kota, but the principle is the same as for any floor: levels are set from a datum before laying starts, not discovered at the last tread.
Questions to ask a tiling contractor before you hire
- How will the tiles be bedded, and will large tiles be back-buttered?
- Will a datum be marked in every room before tiling starts?
- Can I see the set-out before you begin laying?
- What joint width and what grout do you recommend for this tile and this room?
- Where will the cuts fall at the entrance and along the main sightline?
- Where will movement joints go?
- Who waterproofs the bathrooms, and who is responsible for the junction?
- How will the finished floor be protected from other trades?
- Will you tap-test every floor with me before handover?
- Where can I see a floor you laid several years ago?
Red flags when hiring a tiling contractor
- Tiles set on dabs of mortar at the corners, defended as normal practice.
- No datum marked before tiling starts, and levels judged by eye.
- Tiling started at the doorway wall with no dry layout or set-out.
- No spacers, or joints set from the edge of the previous tile rather than from a line.
- New tiles laid over old hollow or cracked tiles, or over tiles in a leaking bathroom.
- A rate per square foot that seems far below others, with bedding materials left unspecified.
- No plan for protecting the finished floor from other trades.
- A reluctance to tap-test the floor with you before handover.
- No experience with your tile size, especially for large formats.
A handover inspection you can do yourself
You do not need special tools to check a tiled floor. A coin, a long straight edge or spirit level, a torch and a bottle of water will reveal most defects. Walk the whole floor tapping every tile with the coin, and mark any that sound hollow. Lay the straight edge across the floor in several directions and look for gaps. Shine the torch low across the floor to show lippage and uneven edges. Sight along the joint lines. Check the thresholds. In wet areas, pour water on the floor and watch where it goes. Our new flat snagging checklist covers this and the rest of the flat in more detail.
Tiling in renovations versus new buildings
Tiling a new building and tiling a renovated flat call for the same standards but present different problems. In a new building, the base is new but may not be level, several teams may be working on different floors at once, and consistency across dozens of flats is the challenge. In a renovation, the base is unknown until the old floor is lifted, the flat may be occupied, the height of the new floor has to work with existing doors and thresholds, and the challenge is dealing honestly with whatever is found underneath. Older flats in the western suburbs often turn out to have original floors that were laid on thick mortar beds which have partly debonded over the years; a good contractor will explain what that means for the new floor before deciding whether to lay over or break out.
Floor height is the renovation problem people most often forget. Breaking out an old floor and relaying on a fresh bed can raise or lower the finished level by a noticeable amount, and a floor laid over the old one always raises it. That affects whether doors still swing clear, whether the bathroom threshold still holds water back, whether the kitchen platform height is still comfortable, and whether the flat's floor still meets the common landing neatly. A good contractor works these heights out at the site visit, not after the first room is done.
What good tiling looks like on our projects
On the buildings we finish, the flooring standard is the same in every flat, not only the sample unit. Tiles are laid on a full bed rather than dabs at the corners, joints run to a struck line, cuts are planned so they land where they are not seen, and levels are carried between rooms from a single datum. That routine has been applied across projects from Abhay C.H.S.L in Tilak Nagar, Chembur, our first documented contract in 2004, through buildings in Kandivali, Borivali, Malad, Andheri, Mulund and Bhayander, to Solitaire Edge, a G+32 tower in Kandivali East.
Where Chamunda Constructions stands
Here is our evidence on each line of the tiling scorecard, for you to score us as you would any other contractor.
- Bedding: full bed under every tile, with no hollows left beneath.
- Levels: a single datum carried through every room, and falls set to the trap across the whole floor in wet areas.
- Set-out: layouts planned from the centre and from a struck line, with cuts placed at the least visible edges.
- Base and wet areas: the same contractor waterproofs, tests and tiles, so the junction has one owner.
- Supervision: our own teams, supervised daily, with Bhadresh Chavda scoping each job personally.
- Handover: we check our own floors for hollows and defects and close them before handover.
- Track record: residential buildings across Mumbai since 2004, many of which you can visit.
What we are not: we do not sell tiles, so we will advise on choice but you or the builder buy them. We are not the lowest rate per square foot, because full bedding, set-out and supervision take time. And because we work with our own teams, our start dates depend on our commitments, which we will tell you honestly.
Book a site visit for your flooring or tiling work
If you are choosing a tiling or flooring contractor in Mumbai, for a flat renovation, a society's common areas or a new building, apply the scorecard above to everyone on your list, including us. To arrange a site visit, send us your location, the areas to be tiled and the tile you are considering through the contact form at the bottom of our home page, and Bhadresh Chavda will come and look at the base and the rooms before anyone quotes.