Tile installation and repair in San Mateo

Tile work in Glazenwood and San Mateo's older districts

The City's 1989 Historic Building Survey named two historic districts: Downtown, along South B Street and 3rd Avenue, and Glazenwood, an early 1920s development of Spanish Colonial Revival homes. Houses in that style often carry decorative tile, and matching tile that old is rarely exact. When a piece cracks, leftovers from the original job are the best case; otherwise we find the closest match and tell you honestly how close it is.

A new shower is mostly what you never see: backer board, waterproofing and a pan sloped to the drain, then tile, grout and flexible caulk at the corners. Swapping tile where tile already is usually stays off the permit counter, but relocating a drain or valve does not, and that part goes to our licensed partner Bay Builder Inc. Text a photo of the crack and any spare tiles.

Worth knowing about San Mateo

• About 70.4% of the city's 42,641 housing units were built before 1980 and 9.5% in 1939 or earlier. The 1950s are the largest single building decade, at 21.3%.
• Hillsdale, started in 1939 and resumed in the late 1940s, has one-story Minimal Traditional and Post-War Minimal houses. Shoreview built 1,200 homes in 1949 alone.
• 19th Avenue Park is an Eichler tract built from 1953 to 1955. The City describes Eichlers as post-and-beam houses, often with a central atrium or courtyard and clerestory windows.