What has to be true before bathroom tile means anything?

Bathroom tile is a finish. It is not the waterproofing. The room is done only when the shower is a complete assembly, the fan duct leaves the house, and the slab drains still work. The assembly is the substrate, the membrane or liner, the slope to a drain, the valve, and the laps at the curb, the niche, and the bench. Grout passes water. Backer board passes water at the screws. If those layers are not named, a new faucet does not make a wet room. The service page is bathroom remodeling. This guide is how that room is scoped when people may still be living in the house.

The shower is an assembly, not a tile job

Name the waterproofing before the tile. The usual choices are a liquid-applied membrane, a sheet membrane, or a pan with a liner. The scope says which one, where it laps, and what check happens before tile. On a liner or a sheet, flood the pan. A liquid membrane gets the cure that product wants. Do not tile a coating that is still soft. Niches and benches are part of that layer, not details added after the board is up.

Paper-faced drywall does not belong inside a shower. Moisture-resistant board, the green or purple sheet, is for a damp wall such as a vanity. It is not a shower interior. Cement board and fiber-cement backer hold tile. They do not stop water. If the assembly uses a coated backer and sealed joints instead of a full membrane, the scope names that product. It does not say tile and leave the rest to habit. Set the mixing valve for the tile thickness so the trim lands on the finished face. Draw access, if the valve needs it, before the wall closes.

A curb, a linear drain, or a wish

A curb keeps shower water on a slab. The pan slopes to a drain, and the curb is waterproofed as its own piece. The floor outside can stay near its present height. A linear drain takes fall in one plane. A curbless shower usually means raising the rest of the room or recessing the shower. If the slab cannot give you that fall, change the drain. Thinset is not a slope. In a small hall bath, check the door swing before demo.

Slab drains and a tub that is leaving

The toilet and the shower drain are trapped under the slab, sloped toward the building drain. Leaving them keeps that piping. Moving a toilet, or centering a shower on an offset tub drain, means a concrete cut, a new trap arm, and a patch that is flat before the finish floor. A base that misses the old drain is plumbing that has not been drawn. A tub-to-shower change reuses or replaces the valve and the trap on purpose. A surround on the old valve is a smaller scope. Stack the floor too high and the flange sits in a hole.

The fan duct ends outdoors

A fan that blows into the attic will wet the wood above a sound tile job. The duct runs to a wall cap or a roof cap, with a damper that closes. It does not dump on the roof deck, and it does not end in a soffit that pulls moist air back in. In a hot attic the duct is insulated so it does not drip into the housing. Short and straight beats a crushed flex line. The fan is sized to the room. A grille with no duct is not ventilation. A window is not the August plan. If that window sits in the wet wall, the frame gets flashed. It does not disappear behind tile.

The switch has to be one the household will use. Steam from a shower here does not stay in the stall. Stops that shut off, a trap you can reach, and a floor that can take a wet foot belong in the scope with the membrane. What moves the work, with no package figure, is on the bathroom remodel cost page.

Choices that belong in the bathroom scope

• The waterproofing system, the laps, and the check before any tile is ordered.
• Wet-area backer inside the shower, and where that backer stops outside the spray.
• A curb and center drain, or a linear drain, chosen from the slab you have.
• Whether the toilet and the shower drain stay, or the slab is cut.
• A fan duct to an exterior cap, insulated if it crosses the attic.
• Which other bath stays usable, with hot water, if people are living here.

What a bathroom visit measures before demo

The visit measures this bath. It records the shower footprint, the toilet, and the vanity clearance at the door. It looks for a fan path to an outside wall or the roof that is not a crushed run through the trusses. It notes whether the wet wall is concrete block or furred frame, because a valve and a niche are cut differently in each. It looks for a soft floor and for stains that say the last shower already leaked. Most of these baths are on a slab, so the clue is often at the baseboard or the far face of a block wall, not in a basement you do not have.

The visit also counts bathrooms. If this is the only one, the plan keeps a toilet and a shower available, or it says the house will be empty. It does not assume a family can pause. It asks which door the debris uses so dust does not cross a bedroom. Photographs under remodeling projects are types of work, not a documented bath.

Permits, humidity, and the only bath in the house

Moved plumbing, a new fan circuit, and a wall that changes are permit work. The office follows the parcel. Inside the City of Ocala, a permit is required for most interior and exterior work. The stated exceptions are painting and floor covering. The counter is the Customer Service Center, 201 SE 3rd Street, 2nd floor, or eTRAKiT. Marion County’s FAQ lists its own examples that do not need a permit, including ordinary minor non-structural repairs. Those examples are the county’s, they are not a guarantee for every scope, and they do not apply inside the city. Rebuilding shower waterproofing is not paint. Read remodeling permits before you treat a same-footprint bath as invisible to the office.

As of September 2026 the edition in force is the 8th Edition (2023) Florida Building Code. The 9th Edition is scheduled for December 31, 2026. Confirm the edition on the permit. Marion County is not the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone. Humidity still governs the room. Do not close a wall over a damp slab patch. Keep one full bath working, toilet and hot shower, until the new one can be used, with the fan ducted outside and the door on. If the only bath has to go offline, that is a vacant-house decision, written down, not a surprise on demo morning.

Errors that show up the first time the new shower runs

Calling the tile the waterproofing. Putting paper-faced moisture-resistant board in the wet zone. Skipping the flood check because the setter is already there. Building a curbless floor on a flat slab with extra thinset. Leaving the fan duct in the attic. Setting the valve for the old tile thickness. Moving the toilet on a sketch with no slab plan. Covering a leaking window with tile. Opening the only bath before the other one has hot water. Each of those is a second tear-out.

Sources

Confirm the code edition at floridabuilding.org. City of Ocala’s permit rule for most interior work, and the painting and floor-covering exception, is published at City of Ocala building and construction permits. County examples that do not require a permit are in the Marion County Building Safety FAQ.