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Quikrete Kitchen Remodeling: The Los Angeles Owner’s Guide
Quikrete kitchen remodeling in Los Angeles typically runs $16,520 to $53,100 for a full kitchen overhaul, with smaller Quikrete-specific cement board and countertop work landing between $2,360 and $7,670. We stock Quikrete-compatible substrates, underlayments, and setting materials on our trucks and can usually start within one business week. Most homeowners discover they need this page the way you probably did: you pulled up a cracked tile or a swollen cabinet base, peeled back the edge, and found the cement board underneath had turned soft, crumbly, or damp. That failed substrate is the part nobody sees until the finish layer tells on it.
Which Quikrete Models This Applies To
When we talk about Quikrete in a kitchen, we’re almost always talking about one of three product families. First, there’s Quikrete’s cement board panels, most commonly the 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch sheets used as a tile substrate behind backsplashes and under floor tile. Second, there’s Quikrete’s polymer-modified thin-set mortar, which is what actually holds your tile to that cement board. Third, and less common in a kitchen, is Quikrete’s rapid-set concrete mix, sometimes poured for a raised island base or to level a badly sloped floor before tile goes down.
The compatibility gotcha we see all over Los Angeles: not every Quikrete mortar is rated for every tile. If your kitchen has large-format porcelain tile, you need a medium-bed mortar, not the standard thin-set. Using the wrong one leads to tile that never fully cures flat, and that’s a problem you’ll feel every time you slide a chair across the floor. We match the mortar to the tile and the cement board to the moisture load, because a kitchen above a crawlspace in Mar Vista gets a lot more ground moisture than a second-story unit in Silver Lake. For OEM versus aftermarket, Quikrete is already the value-engineered option. The brand is widely available, inexpensive, and consistent. There’s no meaningful “OEM premium” with Quikrete the way there is with, say, Cambria or Silestone surfaces. The real decision isn’t brand, it’s spec: panel thickness, mortar rating, and whether you need a waterproofing membrane on top of the board. That last part matters more in Los Angeles than most local companies will tell you, because our wet winters and dry summers stress cement board at the seams.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Quikrete Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Grout lines cracking in a straight line. This usually means the cement board underneath has shifted at a seam. The board may have been installed without the correct fasteners or without mesh tape, and the movement telegraphs right through the tile.
- Tiles sounding hollow when you tap them with a coin or a screwdriver handle. That hollow sound means the mortar has lost bond with the substrate. In a kitchen, the two top culprits are moisture from a slow sink leak or mortar that was mixed too dry on install day.
- Base cabinets showing swelling or staining at the toe kick. Water runs downhill, and a failed tile floor sends it straight to the cabinet bases. By the time the MDF or plywood swells, the Quikrete board behind it has usually been wicking moisture for months.
- Grout turning dark or staying damp long after you clean. Cementitious grout is porous. Dark grout that won’t dry is a sign moisture is trapped in the setting bed beneath, and in a Los Angeles kitchen, that’s often a supply line leak or a dishwasher drip pan that’s been quietly failing.
- Backsplash tiles pulling away from the wall at the counter junction. The backsplash takes the most abuse in any kitchen: heat, steam, oil splatter, cleaning chemicals. When the cement board behind it degrades, the tile loses its mechanical bond and starts to lean or fall.
See the difference
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After
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
For Quikrete-specific substrate and setting-material work in Los Angeles, you’re looking at a range that depends on how far the damage goes. A backsplash repair, which usually means removing tile, cutting out the failed cement board, hanging new 1/2-inch Quikrete board, and re-tiling, lands between $945 and $2,950. A full kitchen remodel where we’re replacing failed underlayment, setting new tile, and rebuilding the finish layers runs $16,520 to $53,100. Countertop installation, when the Quikrete work is the underlayment rather than the surface, generally falls between $2,360 and $7,670 depending on the slab material and edge profile.
Every quote includes the same line items: demolition and haul-off of the failed material, the Quikrete board and fasteners, mortar and grout, the labor to hang and set, and the finish tile if we’re supplying it. You get a written price before we pull a single tile, and that number is the number on your invoice. No change orders, no “we found something” phone call that tacks on another two grand. If the repair fails within 365 days, we come back and make it right at no charge, and that promise is in writing on every project.
DIY or Call Us?
Cutting out and replacing Quikrete cement board is not a weekend project for most homeowners, and it’s not really a safety risk the way a garage door spring or an electrical panel is, but it is a skill job. The board has to be cut with a carbide blade, which throws a lot of silica dust, and it has to be fastened on a schedule: screws every 8 inches on the perimeter, every 12 inches in the field. Miss that pattern and you get the exact seam-cracking movement we described above. Then you’ve spent a Saturday and a few hundred dollars to build the same problem back into your kitchen.
What you can do safely: check for the source of the moisture, because a plumbing leak will destroy the best cement board job in the world. Look under the sink, around the dishwasher, and at the supply lines to your fridge. Stop the water first. Then call (213) 277-6578 and we’ll take it from there.
FAQs
Quikrete cement board itself has no organic material to rot, so it can last 30 years or more as long as it stays dry. The failure point is almost always installation or water intrusion, not the product aging out. In Los Angeles, our dry-wet seasonal cycle puts more stress on board seams than a flat-humidity climate like Florida.
No. The tile and the board are bonded together, so once the substrate has failed, you can’t fix it from behind. The repair means removing the tile, cutting out the bad section of board, and starting fresh. Call (213) 277-6578 and we’ll give you a written price for the full repair before any demo starts.
Most backsplash and floor substrate replacements take one to two working days once the tile is off, plus the time for mortar and grout to cure before the kitchen gets normal use. We schedule a defined arrival window so you’re not waiting around all day wondering if we’re coming.
Yes. We keep standard 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch Quikrete cement board, polymer-modified thin-set, and grout on the trucks, along with the correct fasteners and seam tape. For less common thicknesses or rapid-set concrete for an island base, we’ll source it same day from suppliers here in Los Angeles. We also work with KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone when the project goes beyond substrate and into new cabinetry or countertops.
If your Quikrete substrate has failed, don’t live with cracked tile and a damp cabinet base. Call (213) 277-6578 for a free estimate. We’ll give you a written number before we pick up the tools, and we’ll stand behind the work for 365 days. That’s the way we do every kitchen in Los Angeles.
Written by Trevor Nash, Owner, Penhallow Remodeling Los Angeles at Penhallow Remodeling Los Angeles, serving Los Angeles and nearby areas.
