AC Tile Corp

AC Tile Corp sets tile — and, more to the point, builds what goes underneath it. The service list reads like a shower assembly rather than a remodeling menu: waterproofing membranes, mud pans, rubber and Styrofoam shower-pan systems, linear drains, cement board, custom seats and niches. That is the part of a bathroom that fails when it is done badly, and it is the part this company sells. The shop works out of 17 Governor Peabody Rd in Billerica, and its own site is actilecorp.com. Materials run the full range — ceramic and porcelain, travertine, marble, granite, slate, quarry and glass — across floors, backsplashes, fireplaces, mud rooms, foyers, basement floors, steam rooms and handicap-accessible showers. Alongside houses it takes new construction, rentals, restaurants and office space, so a homeowner is one customer type among several here. The track record is where a homeowner should slow down. Porch shows 4.8 from five ratings, but labels that figure "based on 5 online reviews" — its own restatement of scores gathered elsewhere, not reviews written by Porch customers. On its Houzz page the company has no reviews at all; Houzz invites you to write the first one. Nowhere in either listing is there a single line of review text. Five aggregated stars with nothing written behind them is a thin foundation, and the rating here reflects that rather than the 4.8. The two listings also disagree about how long the company has been at it: Houzz carries the company's own "25 years" in Massachusetts, Porch's stats block says 22. Neither figure is verified, and they cannot both be right. On credentials, the company states it is "fully licensed and insured" but publishes no licence number, type or issuing board on either page, and nothing was confirmed against the state registry. Ask for the number and check it yourself before work starts. If you want tile set over a properly built and waterproofed substrate — a custom shower, a mud-set floor, a basement or steam room — this is a specialist that does that specific work and has for two decades. Ask for addresses of recent local jobs and photographs of pan and membrane work before it was tiled over, since that is exactly the part you will never see again once the tile goes down. Pricing is posted as time-and-material starting around $500, so get the scope and an estimate in writing.