Microcement for Tile and Flooring Installers
You are the trade with the least to learn here. Substrate prep, deflection, movement, waterproofing sequence — that is the whole difficulty of microcement, and it is already your day job. What you gain is a floor that goes down over the one that is already there.
The pitch is the demo you do not do
Retiling a bathroom over an existing tiled floor normally starts with a demolition day. Tear out, haul off, and then whatever you find underneath once the old bed is gone. That is a day of labour, a dumpster, disposal, and a repair you could not price in advance.
Microcement goes on at about 2 mm over what is already there. No demo, no dumpster, no surprise subfloor. On a job where the old floor is sound, you have removed the single most expensive and least predictable part of the schedule.
That is not a marketing line, it is the whole commercial case. Everything else is detail.
What the mesh is actually for
Your first question is going to be cracking, because you have seen what a substrate does to a rigid finish. Fair question.
Over anything that is not bare, sound concrete, the system uses a fiberglass mesh bedded into a structural build coat under the finish. That is what stops movement underneath from reaching the surface, and it is what keeps old grout lines from telegraphing through. It is doing the same job as an uncoupling membrane in your tile work, and you should think about it the same way: it is not optional on the substrates that need it.
Core
Primer, microcement, sealer. Bare, sound concrete floors and interior walls. If the slab is good, this is all you need.
Reinforced
Adds fiberglass mesh bedded into a structural build coat. Over tile, over plywood, anything wet, anything outdoors. This is most of your work.
Where it goes, and where it does not
Swipe to see the whole table
| Substrate | System | What you check first |
|---|---|---|
| Bare concrete slab | Core | Sound, clean, no active moisture, no curing compound left on it |
| Existing tile | Reinforced | Every tile bonded. Anything drummy comes out and gets filled before you start |
| Plywood / wood subfloor | Reinforced | Deflection first, exactly as you would for tile. A floor that flexes is not a candidate |
| Cement board | Reinforced | Fastening schedule and joints treated before anything goes over it |
| Wet areas and showers | Reinforced | Waterproofing sequence and every penetration |
| Outdoors, decks, patios | Reinforced | Movement and drainage |
Every flaw in the substrate telegraphs. There is no grout line, no lippage allowance and no 1/8 inch of thinset to bury a high spot. A floor that would have been fine under tile can be visibly wrong under microcement. Flatness tolerance is the thing that catches good tile setters out, and it is worth being stricter than you think you need to be.
What you charge for
Materials run about $7 a square foot for Core and about $14 for Reinforced. But the per-square-foot number only gets good once you are using most of what you bought — a 40 sq ft shower floor and a 100 sq ft shower surround cost exactly the same in material, because you cannot buy half a pail.
Practically, that means sell the room, not the surface. Adding the walls to a shower floor costs almost nothing extra in material and doubles what you can bill. The material calculator will show you that on your own numbers before you quote.
No trade account, no certification
Most microcement in the US is gated behind a certification and a trade account. Our sister company Microcement USA runs that model, and if you want to learn it hands-on with an instructor before you sell it, go there.
Microvella sells it to you direct. No licence, no proof of trade, no minimum. Order the system you need for the job in front of you.
Common questions
Does it go over a heated floor?
Ask us before you order. Heated assemblies vary enough that we would rather look at your build-up than give you a blanket answer.
What about movement joints?
They carry through, same as they do in tile. You do not bridge a structural joint with a rigid finish and hope.
Will old grout lines show?
Not through a properly bedded mesh and build coat. That is precisely what the Reinforced system is for. Straight Core over tile is how you get ghosting.
How thick is the finished floor?
About 2 mm of buildup over the existing surface, so thresholds, door undercuts and appliance heights usually stay as they are.
See the full product list and what each coat does.
Add it to what you already sell.
Microvella ships late 2026. Join the waitlist and we will email you the day you can order.
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