Glossary

Miami remodeling terms, in plain English.

Name: Biscayne Bath Co
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31 terms that come up in quotes, permit applications, and condo paperwork across Miami-Dade, defined without the jargon that usually surrounds them.

Alteration agreement: The contract a condo association requires an owner to sign before renovation begins. It sets the rules of the job, work hours, elevator use, protection of common areas, and shifts responsibility for the work and its future maintenance onto the unit owner. Reading it before design starts prevents most condo remodel surprises.
Bonded waterproofing membrane: A sheet or liquid-applied layer adhered directly to the shower substrate that stops water at the surface rather than letting it soak into the assembly. The current standard of care for Miami showers, where nothing behind a wall ever dries out on its own.
Cast iron drain line: The original waste piping in most Miami homes built before roughly 1975. It corrodes from the inside over decades until the walls go thin and the line cracks or collapses. A bathroom remodel is the natural moment to inspect and replace the branch serving that room, because the pipe is already exposed.
CBS (concrete block stucco): The dominant construction type in South Florida: concrete masonry unit walls finished with stucco outside. It resists wind and termites, and it means bathroom plumbing cannot be rerouted through wall or floor cavities the way it can in wood-framed housing.
Certificate of insurance (COI): Proof of a contractor's liability and workers compensation coverage, issued by the insurer. Condo associations almost universally require one naming the association before approving work, and the requirement is why unlicensed handyman work rarely gets through a board.
Certified vs registered contractor: Florida licenses contractors in two forms. A certified license, issued by the state through DBPR, is valid statewide. A registered license is valid only in the specific local jurisdictions that granted it. Both are legitimate; the practical difference is where the holder can legally pull permits.
CFM (cubic feet per minute): The airflow rating of an exhaust fan. The Florida Building Code sets 50 CFM as the minimum for an intermittent bathroom fan, or 20 CFM running continuously. In this climate the minimum is a floor rather than a goal, and enclosed showers benefit from more.
Core drilling: Cutting a clean circular hole through concrete, typically to route a new drain or vent through a slab. In condos it is the step most likely to require engineering review, because the slab is shared structure between units.
DBPR: The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the agency that licenses and disciplines construction contractors statewide. License status, expiration, and any disciplinary history are public record and searchable by name or license number.
Efflorescence: The chalky white mineral residue that appears on tile, grout, or a shower curb when water moves through the assembly and evaporates at the surface. In a shower it is a symptom rather than a cosmetic issue: water is getting somewhere it should not be.
Flood test: Plugging a finished shower drain, filling the pan with water to just below the curb, and watching the level for a day to confirm the waterproofing holds. A routine plumbing inspection step in Miami-Dade and the cheapest insurance in the project, since a pinhole found before tile costs a day and one found after costs a rebuild.
Furred wall: A block wall with wood or metal strips fastened to it to create a shallow cavity for insulation, wiring, and drywall. Common in Miami bathrooms and important during a remodel, because that cavity is thin, and anything heavy, like a grab bar, must anchor through it into the block itself.
Hot mop: The older method of waterproofing a shower pan using layers of hot asphalt and felt beneath a mortar bed. Standard in Florida construction for decades and still legal, though sheet and liquid membranes have largely replaced it in new work. Most failed pans in 1970s and 1980s homes are hot-mopped originals at the end of their service life.
HVHZ (High Velocity Hurricane Zone): The Florida Building Code designation covering Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the strictest wind-resistance regime in the country. It governs exterior openings and structural connections, so it touches a bathroom project only when the work involves a window or other exterior opening.
IIC rating: Impact Insulation Class, the measure of how well a floor assembly blocks footfall noise reaching the unit below. Many Miami condo buildings set a minimum IIC for hard flooring and require an acoustic underlayment to meet it, and bathrooms are not always exempt.
Milestone inspection: The mandatory structural inspection Florida law requires for condo buildings three stories and taller, first at 30 years of age, or 25 for buildings within three miles of the coast, and every 10 years after. Buildings working through the cycle scrutinize any renovation touching structural elements far more closely.
Mortar bed (mud-set): A thick layer of packed sand-and-cement mortar used to form the sloped floor of a shower pan or to level a tile substrate. The traditional Florida shower floor method, still used, and the reason older pans can be rebuilt to fall correctly toward the drain rather than shimmed with thinner materials.
NOA (Notice of Acceptance): The product approval issued by Miami-Dade Product Control certifying that a window, door, shutter, or roofing product meets local wind and impact standards. Plans that specify exterior products without a current NOA fail review, which matters to a bathroom project only when a window is part of the scope.
Notice of Commencement: A document recorded with the county before work begins on projects above a dollar threshold, identifying the owner, contractor, and property. It starts the clock on Florida construction lien rights and is typically posted at the job site; a missing one can complicate the final inspection.
Open permit: A permit that was issued but never closed with a passing final inspection. Miami-Dade property records surface these during a sale, and they routinely delay closings until the work is inspected or the permit is resolved. Closing out every permit is the last real step of a remodel.
Pipe lining (CIPP): Cured-in-place pipe, a trenchless repair method that pulls a resin-saturated liner through a deteriorated drain line and cures it into a new pipe within the old one. Used in Miami as an alternative to breaking slabs, and common in condo buildings where opening the floor is impractical.
Riser: The vertical supply or waste pipe running through a stack of condo units, serving many bathrooms at once. Risers are building property rather than unit property, so any work touching them requires management coordination and usually a scheduled water shutdown for the whole line.
Service elevator reservation: The scheduled window a condo building assigns for moving construction material and debris. It is a real constraint on the job schedule, not a formality, and it is a large part of why identical bathroom work costs more in a tower than in a house.
Slab-on-grade: A foundation where the concrete floor slab sits directly on prepared ground, with no basement or crawl space beneath. Nearly universal in Miami single-family housing, and the reason relocating a bathroom drain here means cutting and re-pouring concrete rather than working from below.
Slab penetration: Any new hole cut through a structural concrete floor, usually to relocate a drain. In houses it is a cost item, roughly $2,500 to $6,000 with the concrete work. In condos it is a governance question first, because the slab is shared with the unit below and many buildings restrict or prohibit it.
Terrazzo: The poured stone-chip flooring found throughout mid-century Miami homes, often hidden under later carpet or tile. Where it survives intact it grinds and polishes back to a durable floor that outlasts most modern materials, making it worth uncovering before demolition rather than after.
Trade permit: A permit issued to a specific licensed trade, plumbing, electrical, or mechanical, filed against the main building permit for a project. A Miami bathroom remodel typically carries a building permit plus plumbing and electrical trade permits, each pulled by the contractor performing that scope.
Tunneling: Excavating horizontally beneath a slab from outside the house to reach failed drain lines without breaking the floor. Preferred in Miami over jackhammering interior slabs when the damaged run is accessible from the perimeter, since it leaves finished floors intact.
Wet room: A bathroom layout where the shower, and sometimes the tub, sit inside one fully waterproofed and sloped zone behind a single glass panel rather than in a separate enclosure. It suits Miami slab construction, which takes recessed slopes cleanly, and demands generous ventilation to match.
Wet-over-dry: The building rule restricting where wet areas can be located relative to the unit below, meant to keep a bathroom from sitting above a neighbor's living space. Many Miami condo buildings apply some version of it, which is why moving a shower within a unit is a building question before it is a design question.
Wet wall: The wall carrying a bathroom's supply and drain plumbing. Keeping fixtures on the existing wet wall is the single most effective way to control cost in a Miami remodel, because the alternative means opening the slab or, in a condo, asking the board for something it may not grant.

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