Glossary

The vocabulary in your quote

Name: Mountain View Bath Co
Telephone: +16509665276
Price range: $$$

33 terms that show up in bathroom quotes, inspection reports and contracts around Mountain View, explained without the trade shorthand.

Structure and substrate

Slab on grade: A concrete floor poured directly on the ground, with no crawl space or basement beneath. Most Mountain View housing built in the 1950s and 1960s uses it. Drain lines are cast inside the slab, which is why moving a fixture costs $1,500 to $4,000 rather than a few hundred.
Raised foundation: A floor structure built over a crawl space on perimeter footings and interior piers. Plumbing hangs underneath where it can be reached, so layout changes are dramatically cheaper than on a slab.
Post and beam: A structural system carrying loads on widely spaced posts and exposed beams rather than closely spaced joists and rafters. Standard in Eichlers and much mid-century modern housing. It usually leaves no attic void, which complicates fan ducting and recessed lighting.
Radiant slab heating: Heating delivered by warm water circulating through tubing cast into the concrete floor. Common in Eichlers. The tubing has to be located before any part of the slab is cut, because a strike means a leak under concrete.
Substrate: Whatever the tile is fixed to. In a shower this is cement backer board, foam board or a membrane system, never ordinary drywall. Getting the substrate right is a precondition of the waterproofing working at all.
Blocking: Short timber pieces fixed between studs to give a solid fixing point behind the wall surface. Required behind grab bars, useful behind heavy mirrors and wall-hung vanities. Cheap while the walls are open, a demolition job afterwards.
Wet wall: The wall carrying the supply and drain plumbing for the room. Keeping fixtures on the existing wet wall is the single most effective way to hold a bathroom budget down.

Waterproofing and tile

Bonded waterproofing membrane: The continuous water barrier behind shower tile, either a sheet product thin-set into place or a liquid rolled on in coats. Tile and grout are not waterproof on their own. This layer is what keeps water out of the structure.
Flood test: Plugging the drain, filling the shower pan with water and leaving it for a day to confirm nothing leaks before tile goes down. Cheap, quick and the last practical moment to find a defect in the pan.
Linear drain: A long channel drain, usually set at one edge of the shower floor. It lets the floor slope in a single plane rather than four, which is what makes large-format tile and a curbless entry practical.
Curbless shower: A shower with no raised threshold, the floor running flat from the room into the shower. The best long-term choice in most bathrooms and $3,000 to $6,000 more than a curbed one, because on a slab the concrete has to be cut and recessed.
Crack isolation membrane: A layer that uncouples tile from the surface below so small movement in a concrete slab does not travel up and split the grout. Roughly $300 to $800 on a bathroom floor, and worth it on any slab-on-grade house.
Movement joint: A flexible joint, usually silicone, left in a tile field and at every change of plane so the assembly can expand and contract. Grout in those positions cracks. Industry tile methods specify where they go.
Thin-set mortar: The cement-based adhesive tile is bedded in. Different formulations suit different tile types and substrates, and large-format tile in particular needs a mortar rated for it rather than a general-purpose bag.
DCOF: Dynamic coefficient of friction, the standard measure of how slippery a tile is when wet. A rating of 0.42 or above is the usual specification for a bathroom floor, and it matters more than any other number on the box.
Large format tile: Tile with any edge 15 inches or longer. Fewer grout lines, so it reads calmer and cleans more easily, but it demands a flatter substrate because a large rigid tile cannot follow a wavy wall.
Epoxy grout: Grout using an epoxy resin binder rather than cement. Effectively non-porous and highly stain resistant, more expensive and less forgiving to install. Usually specified on shower floors and high-use surfaces rather than everywhere.

Fixtures, systems and code

Pressure-balanced valve: A shower valve that keeps the hot and cold ratio steady when pressure changes elsewhere in the house, so a flushed toilet does not scald the person in the shower. Required in new work.
Thermostatic valve: A shower valve holding a set temperature rather than a set mix, and usually allowing separate volume control. More expensive than pressure-balanced, and what most multi-outlet showers use.
GFCI: Ground fault circuit interrupter, a device that cuts power when it detects current leaking to earth. Required on bathroom receptacles. Mountain View specifies protected receptacles within three feet of each basin, on a dedicated 20 amp circuit.
Rough-in: The stage where plumbing and electrical are installed inside the open walls and floor, before anything is covered. It is inspected before it is closed up, and it is the last easy moment to change where anything goes.
CFM: Cubic feet per minute, the airflow rating of an exhaust fan. The standard specification is 50 CFM for a fan running on demand or 20 CFM running continuously, ducted to outside air. A window does not substitute for it.
Title 24: The California Building Standards Code. The 2025 edition took effect on 1 January 2026. It covers the residential, plumbing, electrical, energy and green building parts that a bathroom project touches.
Title 20: California appliance efficiency regulations, which set the fixture flow limits: 1.8 gallons per minute for showerheads, 1.2 for bathroom basin taps and 1.28 gallons per flush for toilets. All tighter than the federal equivalents.
CalGreen: Part 11 of Title 24, California green building standards. For a bathroom it mostly shows up as water efficiency and construction waste requirements.
Comfort height: A toilet with a bowl rim around 17 to 19 inches from the floor rather than the traditional 15. Easier to sit down on and stand up from, and now the more common specification.

Contract and process

CSLB: The Contractors State License Board, the California agency that licenses and regulates contractors. Its public register shows a licence classification, status, bond, workers compensation coverage and complaint history.
Class B licence: General building contractor. Covers a project involving at least two unrelated trades, which is what a bathroom remodel is. Single-trade work needs the relevant specialty classification instead, C-54 for tile or C-36 for plumbing.
Home improvement contract: The specific contract form California requires for residential improvement work above $500. It has mandated content, including licence number, itemised price, payment schedule, dates and a mechanics lien warning.
Allowance: A budget figure carried in a quote for a material not yet chosen, tile or a vanity for example. Useful for getting a project priced early, and the most common reason a final invoice differs from the original quote.
Change order: A written amendment covering work outside the original scope, priced and agreed before that work proceeds. It is the mechanism that stops a discovery behind the wall becoming an argument at the end.
Mechanics lien: A claim an unpaid subcontractor or supplier can record against a property. In California it can arise even where the homeowner has paid the general contractor in full, which is why the warning is mandatory contract language.
Punch list: The list of small items outstanding at the end of a project, compiled at a walkthrough. Having one is normal. Tying a portion of the final payment to clearing it is also normal.

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