Regrout the joint. Do not pretend it is the membrane

Last updated 31 October 2026.

Grout is the fill between tiles. In a Singapore bathroom it lives in heat, detergent and the occasional flood from a floor trap that was slow. Cement grout is a cement mix. It is what most HDB toilets were finished with. It is porous, it takes a stain, and it shrinks if it was mixed too wet, which opens a hairline you can lose a fingernail in. Epoxy grout is a resin and a hardener. It is tighter, it shrugs off curry and mould better, and it punishes a slow worker: the open time in a hot bathroom is short, and the haze left on the glaze becomes permanent if you wait until after lunch.

Neither product replaces the membrane. The membrane is under the screed. The grout is in the face. A regrout is the right spend when the joints are missing or cracked, the tiles are stuck and flat, and a ponding test leaves the ceiling below dry. It is the wrong spend when that ceiling darkens during the pond, when tiles sound hollow across the shower, or when white salts are coming out of the joint from the slab side. Salts mean water is moving through the build-up, not just sitting in a dirty joint. Regrouting then gives you a clean grid over a live leak.

The published sentence is specific. “Regrouting a typical HDB bathroom, S$400 to S$900” lives on the tile page. A long landed bathroom, a commercial toilet, or an epoxy specification that is not that sentence, is quote on inspection. Do not multiply S$400 by the number of rooms. A single cracked tile with a spare is S$80 to S$180. One mouldy silicone zone is S$80 to S$150. People say “grout” when they mean the black corner. Look at the photo. The grid is grout. The corner, the bath rim and the base of the pan are silicone. Silicone over a failed grout grid, or grout forced into a movement joint, both fail. The corner moves. Grout does not want to move. Silicone does.

A cement regrout, done properly, is a sequence. Rake the joint back to a sound depth. If you only scratch the surface, the new grout is a skin and it shells off. Vacuum the dust. Dampen the joint for cement so it does not flash-dry against hot tile. Force the grout in. Tool it. Wash the haze while it is haze. Keep water out for the cure the product asks for, which means the household uses the other bathroom or accepts a bucket night. A sloppy cement job is soupy mix, joints half filled, and a smear across mouldy silicone that was never cut out. The mould is still under the smear. It returns as a black line in a month, and the customer thinks grout “does not last”.

Epoxy is the same rake and vacuum, then a different discipline. The two parts are mixed to the ratio on the tin, not by eye. In a small HDB bathroom the heat shortens the pot life, so the batch is small. The grout is forced, not floated into a thick film on the glaze. The haze is cut with the method the manufacturer prints, in the window they print. Cured haze is the job you see every morning. Epoxy in a movement joint is still the wrong material. Finish the grid, then cut and replace the silicone. “Non-shrink” is a property people ask for because cement grout that was too wet shrinks. A non-shrink cementitious grout can be the right cement option. It is still cement. It is still not epoxy, and it is still not a membrane. We do not publish a lifespan in years for either.

Strength is the wrong prize. Epoxy is harder, which is why a dropped bottle does not dig it out as easily, and why a later tile replacement is harder. Harder is useful on a kitchen floor and a shower floor that stays dirty. It is overkill on a dry bedroom floor, and it is a poor use of money on a bathroom whose ponding test has already failed. A full bathroom renovation is a different budget: the hollow-tile guide prints S$4,000 to S$7,000 for a hack and re-tile with the membrane. Paying epoxy prices to avoid that conversation, when the ceiling is wet, is how the epoxy gets hacked out a year later.

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices permit-exempt leak checks, regrouting, silicone, and making-good after the water has stopped. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices an HDB renovation permit when bathroom finishes are hacked or a new membrane is laid under new tiles. A concealed or new water-supply pipe is a PUB licensed plumber. Homey Furnishing is not that plumber and does not publish a waterproofing warranty term.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking. Fabric window treatments are a different product, and these pages do not quote them.

Look at the ceiling below before you look at grout colour charts.

1. Pond the wet area with the trap plugged. If the lower ceiling changes colour, this page ends.
2. Tap for hollow tiles. Intact hollow tiles are injection, S$350 to S$750 for four to ten, not a regrout.
3. Mark movement joints with tape so they are not packed with grout.
4. Rake, vacuum, pack, haze, then silicone.
5. If the quote says epoxy, ask who is on the haze and what time of day the bathroom will be cool enough to work.

Grout does not care about the tenure. The 3-year rule cares about whether you lift tiles. A regrout that leaves the tiles down is not a replacement of the finishes.

Use cement grout when the ceiling is dry, the joints are the problem, and you want the published HDB-bathroom band. Choose a cement grout that is meant for wet areas, and do not add extra water to make it “buttery”. Use epoxy when the floor is a shower that stains, the household will actually keep the appointment for the haze, and the quote says epoxy rather than quietly substituting cement. Refuse both when the leak test fails. Refuse epoxy in the corner. The corner is silicone, cut out fully, not a bead on top of the old black one.

Colour is the last decision. Dark cement grout hides dirt and shows a sloppy edge. Light epoxy shows every lip. Match the existing field if only a bay is being done, or the patch will read as a repair forever. A whole-room regrout can change colour. A doorway bay that changes colour looks like a mistake.

This is the decision the search “epoxy versus cement” is actually asking for. The third column is the one contractors skip.

Get the material and the haze onto the quotation, not only the word regrout.

1. Is the price the S$400 to S$900 tile-page sentence, and does my photo match a typical HDB bathroom?
2. Cement or epoxy, and what product name?
3. How deep will you rake?
4. Who cuts epoxy haze, and what do you do if it cures on the glaze?
5. Are corners and the trap in silicone after the grid?
6. What happens if the ponding test wets the ceiling halfway through?

A wet lower ceiling is the waterproofing page and, if the upstairs owner will not move, the HDB inspection guide. Regrout is not a way to stay out of that conversation.

Grinding joints throws dust into a small flat. Cover the door. If the bathroom shares a wall with a household shelter, do not chase a hollow sound by hacking that wall. SCDF does not permit it. Window-frame mould is not grout. Send it to the window sealant page.

How you're charged

A leak or waterproofing job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. Nothing in this table is a fuel surcharge, and the handyman hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. A membrane, a balcony, a planter, a roof, an epoxy-grout system, or a listening survey with no matching row is quote on inspection.

Who is allowed to do the work

HDB’s renovation pages split a coat of silicone from a hacked bathroom. Replacing toilet wall and floor finishes is not allowed for 3 years from the completion date of the block, because a membrane sits on the screed. After that, a replacement uses pre-packed waterproofing screed, a membrane upturned at least 150mm at walls, kerbs and pipes, a UPVC floor-trap grating with a long collar, and a water test. Fines for unauthorised work are already written on the permit guide as up to S$5,000. Homey Furnishing does not sign the permit invoice.

• Regrout, a silicone zone, hollow-tile injection and a stain repaint after the water has stopped stay on the published rows. They do not replace a membrane.
• Opening the bathroom floor or wall finishes is V On Construction when the flat is HDB and the work needs a permit.
• PUB’s leak leaflet says it is an offence under the Public Utilities Act to engage an unlicensed worker for plumbing work. A concealed or new supply pipe is a licensed plumber. An exposed trap is a different visit.
• External walls of an HDB block are common property. The town council on the S&CC bill is the first report, not a private injector.
• SCDF does not allow hacking of household-shelter walls, floor slabs or ceiling slabs to chase a pipe. The leak is found another way.
• A window-frame leak is the window sealant page. Exterior rivets and stays stay with a BCA approved window contractor.
• Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not quoted here.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Photograph the stain, the wet room, and the water meter before anyone hacks. A hack that destroys the evidence is a second problem.
• Run one test at a time. Shower, flush, aircon and rain on the same afternoon make a useless log.
• If the joint is only mouldy silicone, the published zone is S$80 to S$150. That is not a membrane.
• If the ceiling is already dry and the source is fixed, the hairline repaint is S$150 to S$400. Paint on a live leak is how the stain returns.
• If only the silicone is black, pay S$80 to S$150 for the zone. Do not buy a full regrout because the corner looks tired.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

The regrout band is the tile page’s sentence. Epoxy as its own system is quote on inspection so we do not invent a second number.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

Official pages, not a legal opinion

HDB’s 3-year rule is about replacing finishes, not about the brand of grout. We do not publish how many years epoxy “lasts”.

• HDB, 3-year toilet finishes. Replacing tiles is restricted. A regrout that leaves the tiles in place is not that replacement.
• HDB ceiling leaks. If the ceiling below is already part of a neighbour dispute, regrout is not the scheme.
• SCDF shelter. Do not open shelter walls because a joint looks hollow.

• Tile repair bands
• The published HDB regrout sentence
• No-hack limits
• If the membrane failed
• Hollow tiles
• Handyman price list