Your floor is the single largest surface in your home, the only one you physically stand on every day, and the hardest thing to change later. Get it wrong and you live with it for fifteen years, or you pay to hack it out. Yet it is often the line that gets value-engineered first.
Singapore makes this harder than most markets. Ambient humidity sits between 70 and 90 per cent year round. You run aircon in the bedrooms and not in the yard, so one flat contains two climates. HDB caps how much weight and height you can add to a slab. And half the flooring failures we get called to fix are not material failures — they are installation failures baked in on day one.
This is the comparison we give our own clients. Where a figure comes off our own rate card it is marked as ours. Where it is a market range, re-quote it fresh against your actual floor plan.
The only three questions that matter
Does the room get wet? Not "might get a spill" — wet. Bathroom, service yard, open balcony. Wet rooms rule out timber and anything with an organic core.
Is it air-conditioned? Aircon dries the air hard. Materials that move with moisture move twice as much in a room cycling between 60 and 85 per cent relative humidity daily.
Are you overlaying or hacking? This decides your budget more than the material does.
Overlay or hack: decide this first
Overlay means laying new material on top of what is already there. Hack-and-relay means demolishing down to the structural slab, re-screeding and starting again.
Overlay is cheaper and faster. No demolition, no disposal, no hacking permit. On our rates you skip the hacking line entirely — stripping floor finishes in a 4-room living and dining area is $1,550, living plus bedrooms is $2,350, and a full-flat demolition package is $4,050 — and you skip re-screeding at $6 per square foot on top of that.
Overlay is also how you inherit someone else's problems. If the existing tiles are already hollow, laying vinyl over them does not fix the bond, it hides it. The debonded tile keeps moving, and in two years you get a soft spot in your new floor and no way to reach it.
Tap the existing floor with a coin before you commit. A sharp click is bonded. A dull drum is not. If more than a few tiles drum, hack.
Hack-and-relay is right when the screed is failing, when you are changing floor levels, when you are doing wet works anyway, or when you want large-format tile that needs a flat substrate.
Screed height and door clearance
Every millimetre you add to the floor comes off the bottom of your doors.
HDB permits a maximum floor level raise of 50mm, and that figure includes the finish, not just the screed. Overlay stacks: existing tile at 8 to 10mm, adhesive, new tile at 8 to 12mm. You burn through 50mm faster than people expect, especially if a previous owner already overlaid once.
The consequences show up at the doors. A 5mm vinyl overlay usually means trimming door leaves. A tile-over-tile overlay in a bathroom means the door swing fouls the threshold and the kerb detail stops working. Main doors are fire-rated and trimming them has limits.
Any contractor who does not measure your floor-to-door-bottom gap before quoting an overlay is guessing. This is one reason quotes for the same job differ so much.
HDB rules you cannot negotiate
- Floor loading is capped at 150 kg per square metre. A distributed load limit on the slab. It matters for thick stone build-ups, raised platforms and masonry more than for a 10mm tile.
- Hacking existing floor finishes needs a permit. Your contractor applies for it. Floating floors laid over existing finishes generally do not need one.
- New BTO bathrooms have a three-year lock. You cannot hack the floor or wall finishes in a new flat's bathroom until three years after the block's completion date. The reason is the waterproofing membrane underneath. Break it and the unit below gets your shower water. Before three years, your only legitimate option is overlay with slim tile or a thin-film system.
- Wet-area works need waterproofing done properly. After hacking, prepacked waterproofing screed and a membrane go down before any finish — $350 for a bathroom, $400 for a kitchen, $250 for a yard on our card. Then a ponding test at $200: the bathroom is flooded and left 24 hours to prove it holds. A contractor who does not offer a ponding test has made a decision about your risk, not theirs.
- Condos add a layer. Management approval, renovation deposit, restricted hours, and in many developments a flat ban on hacking balcony screed because the balcony is part of the building's external waterproofing envelope. Get the house rules in writing before you buy material.
The materials
Our tiling rate is $13.50 per square foot laid, and it is the same whether the tile is 300 × 600 or 600 × 600 and up. Large format needs two men and a flatter substrate, which costs us more in labour and waste, not you. Screed is $6 per square foot, skirting $12 per foot run, a floor drop or fall $200. Tile supply sits on top of that and is where most of the price range below comes from.
Marble
Nothing else has the depth and veining of real marble. It is the original luxury floor and it still reads that way the moment you walk in. Market rates in 2026 run roughly $40 to $70 per square foot installed, and honing or polishing later is extra.
Hard, but soft chemically — it etches on contact with acid, so coffee, wine, citrus and some toilet cleaners all mark it. Porous, so it absorbs and stains. It needs sealing on a cycle, careful cleaning products and periodic grinding to remove traffic dulling. Every marble floor we have been called back to after five years has traffic lanes, a stain near the dining table and dull patches by the balcony door. Beautiful, and a commitment. Slab thickness plus mortar bed also pushes you toward the 50mm HDB ceiling.
Porcelain tile
Denser, harder-fired and less porous than ceramic. The reliable all-rounder of Singapore tiling and the default for good reason: dimensionally inert in humidity, near-zero water absorption, an enormous range of stone- and wood-look finishes. Laid at our $13.50 per square foot; tile supply in 2026 runs roughly $4 to $12 per square foot depending on format and finish.
Harder and more brittle to cut, so installation needs a skilled hand. Grout is the weak point, not the tile.
Ceramic tile
The budget cousin of porcelain — softer body, usually a glazed top layer over a coloured biscuit, so a chip shows through to a lighter colour underneath. Market supply runs roughly $2 to $6 per square foot, laid at the same $13.50.
Higher absorption than porcelain. Fine on walls and low-traffic dry areas, less ideal on wet floors, and the glaze wears through over years. We do not specify it for main living floors.
Homogeneous tile
Full-body: the colour and material run all the way through, so a chip does not reveal a different colour underneath. Water absorption typically below 0.5 per cent, effectively waterproof. Market supply runs roughly $3 to $10 per square foot, laid at our $13.50.
The workhorse. Tough, consistent, made for high traffic. Less design range than glazed porcelain, more forgiving of abuse. Unglazed surfaces need sealing against oil staining in kitchens.
Vinyl, SPC and LVT
Engineered planks or tiles that click or stick down, sold very hard right now and often dressed up as premium. Our vinyl line is $5 per square foot laid. Premium 6mm boards with embossed-in-register texture and better LVT run higher in the market, roughly $6 to $9 per square foot.
Wear layer thickness is the number that matters — ask for it in mils, not marketing words. SPC's stone-polymer core does not swell, but water sitting in the seams can still reach the subfloor. Thin build-up of 3 to 8mm makes it the overlay of choice, and floating installations over existing finishes generally need no HDB permit.
Here is our honest take. Vinyl was invented to be the affordable alternative to tile. It does not last like a hard surface — the wear layer scratches, it dents under heavy furniture, and seams lift or discolour over the years. So when premium vinyl creeps up toward the price of real tile or stone, ask what you are actually paying for. If your budget has reached tile territory, buy tile.
Laminate is not on this list at all. Its fibreboard core swells at the edges in Singapore humidity. We stopped specifying it.
Engineered timber
Market rates run roughly $15 to $30 per square foot installed; solid parquet roughly $30 to $55.
Durability depends entirely on veneer thickness. A 0.6mm veneer cannot be sanded. A 3mm veneer refinishes once or twice. Not waterproof — a burst kitchen hose ends the floor. Leave the expansion gap at perimeters and do not let skirting pin the boards. Works in air-conditioned bedrooms, marginal in an unconditioned west-facing living room, never in wet areas.
Cement screed
Raw, industrial, seamless concrete — the moody loft finish, and genuinely characterful with no grout lines. Hairline cracking is part of its nature, because it is concrete. It feels cold and hard underfoot, it needs sealing, and any repair tends to show.
Microcement
A thin cement-based coating trowelled over existing surfaces for a seamless, hand-finished look across floors, walls and even wet areas. Market rates run roughly $16 to $23 per square foot supplied and applied.
2 to 3mm applied over a prepared substrate. A coating, not a slab, so it inherits every movement underneath. Waterproof once sealed — the sealer is the waterproofing, and the sealer fails before the cement does. Reseal every two to three years, pH-neutral cleaners only, and you cannot patch a seamless floor invisibly.
It is very hard to maintain. It shows wear, water marks and scuffs, and a repair is almost impossible to blend. Full cure takes about 28 days and humidity extends that. Hairline cracking is almost always substrate movement, so it is only as good as the screed below it and the applicator's hands. Buy it for the look, not for performance.
Where we would point you now: sintered stone
If you read our countertop piece, you already know sintered stone — natural minerals fused above 1200 °C, with no resin. What most of Singapore has not caught onto yet is that it is not only for your countertop and backsplash. It belongs underfoot.
Very high durability, zero water absorption, heat-resistant, UV-stable, effectively no maintenance. It arrives in large-format slabs that let us run near-seamless flooring across a whole unit — barely-there joints instead of a grid of grout lines. Take it further than the kitchen: lay it through the home, then carry the same stone up the toilet walls and over the bathroom floor. The same slab running floor to wall makes a space read calm and continuous.
Right now it is one of the most underused floor materials in Singapore, and that is exactly why it still feels special.
The cost is real. Market rates run roughly $28 to $55 per square foot installed, and wastage, cutting and handling drive that more than the slab price does — 1200 × 2400 slabs need handling frames and a dead-flat substrate. You are paying for skilled large-format installation, not just material. What you get back is a surface that outlives the trend.
You stand on your floor every single day for the next decade. Spend where your feet are.
Why tiles go hollow
Hollow tiles are the most common flooring complaint in Singapore, and almost never the tile's fault. Three causes, in order of frequency.
- Spot bonding. The installer puts five dabs of mortar on the back of the tile instead of full-bed trowelling. Faster, less material, and the voids underneath become failure points. Full coverage is the standard. Ask for it explicitly.
- No movement joints. Tiles expand. Slabs move. Joints butted tight with no room means compression forces the tile up. Minimum 2mm joints, plus perimeter gaps at walls.
- Screed that was never sound. New screed over a dusty or contaminated slab does not bond. It lets go as a sheet and takes the tiles with it. This is why we hack to the slab and clean before re-screeding rather than patching.
Hollow tiles that have not popped yet are still hollow. Injection repairs are a holding action. Relaying is the fix.
Grout is the weak point
Cement grout is porous. In Singapore it absorbs water, feeds mould in shower corners, and goes grey along kitchen traffic lines within two years.
Options, in order of cost: cement grout with a penetrating sealer applied after curing; polymer-modified grout; epoxy grout, which carries a labour premium — ask for it as a priced line rather than a percentage. Epoxy is non-porous and near-permanent, but unforgiving to install: it must be cleaned off the tile face within minutes or it cures on the surface.
Our position: epoxy in wet areas and kitchen floors, cement elsewhere. Darker grout in traffic areas. Never white grout in a service yard.
Decision matrix by room
| Room | First choice | Acceptable | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Living and dining | Large-format porcelain, or SPC vinyl if overlaying | Homogeneous tile; sintered stone if budget allows | Marble unless you accept the upkeep; laminate |
| Bedroom | SPC vinyl | Engineered timber if consistently air-conditioned | Solid timber; tile if you want warmth underfoot |
| Kitchen | Homogeneous or porcelain tile, epoxy grout | Microcement over a sound substrate | Timber of any kind; marble near the hob |
| Bathroom | Porcelain or homogeneous tile, membrane and ponding test | Microcement by a specialist, outside a new BTO's three-year window | Vinyl planks in the shower zone; timber; unsealed stone |
| Balcony | Outdoor-rated porcelain, R10 or better slip rating | Composite decking on pedestals where management allows | Anything indoor-rated; polished stone |
| Service yard | Homogeneous tile, dark epoxy grout, fall to the floor trap | Porcelain | Vinyl at the washing machine; light grout |
Two rules the matrix does not show. Slip rating matters more than finish in any room with a floor trap — ask for the R-value. And a floor is only as good as the fall built into the screed, which is a workmanship question, not a material one.
So what should you actually lay?
The honest answer, the way we would say it to a friend:
- Tight budget, busy floor: porcelain or homogeneous tile. Boring is good here.
- In love with real stone and willing to care for it: marble, eyes open on the cost and the sealing.
- Chasing the seamless look: cement screed or microcement, but know that microcement is high-maintenance, not low.
- Tempted by premium vinyl: price it against real tile first. Vinyl is a budget surface; do not pay luxury money for it.
- Want a finish that feels a step above and actually lasts: sintered stone, floor to wall. This is where we would put our own money today.
Flooring is usually the second-largest line item in a 4-room BTO budget. For numbers against your actual floor plan, talk to us or call +65 8124 0909. Every trade on your job — hacking, screed, tiling, waterproofing — is our own crew, not a subcontractor.