Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Anthony Ritz and Three Brothers Tile: Mastering the Art of Transformative Tile Installation
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Anthony Ritz and Three Brothers Tile: Mastering the Art of Transformative Tile Installation
Ever wondered what makes a space sing with sophistication? This episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast, with host Bob Blaisse, brings that question to Good Neighbor Business guest Anthony Ritz, master craftsman and owner of Three Brothers Tile in Delaware County, PA and beyond, into Chester and Montgomery Counties in PA. Listen to hear Anthony lay down the truth about the transformative power of tile installation revealing how it can make ordinary spaces more attractive, even extraordinary. Tile craftsmanship, from the nitty-gritty of tile grout removal to the luxurious touch of tile installation to accent walls and outdoor living spaces, the owner of Three Brothers Tile talks about his Delco roots and this family business founded by Anthony's father, which exemplifies the blend of artistry and practical application that tile work craftsmanship embodies.
As Bob peels back the layers of the tile trade of Anthony, you'll hear the complexities of installations that require a seasoned tile professional, as our host celebrates Three Brothers Tile, the hidden heroes of home aesthetics as being well-deserving of the Good Neighbor Award for its outstanding service and craftsmanship. So, whether you're a homeowner looking to upgrade the look of your home or business, or a lover of fine craftsmanship, prepare to be inspired by Anthony's passion for perfecting spaces with tile.
Facebook: Three Brothers Tile
Call: 610-809-9542
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Local Tile Installation Business Spotlight
Speaker 1Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Blasey.
Speaker 2Michael Barkan. Thank you very much for another introduction here of the Good Neighbor podcast coming to you from Delara County, pennsylvania. We're in the southeast corner of the state of Pennsylvania, delara County, affectionately known as Delco, and today we're bringing another Good Neighbor business to you. We call them Good Neighbor businesses because they're in our community and they serve us. So as neighbors we're interested in being able to protect those local businesses that make Delara County a better place to live. Today we have the owner of Three Brothers Tile as a guest today on the Good Neighbor podcast.
Speaker 2Let me introduce to you Anthony Ritz. Hello, anthony, hey Bob, how are you? Thanks for coming on today. And Anthony, you know you get it I mean when I sold you your business be nominated for being a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast. I certainly understood because you know just about these days Everybody's got tile in their house, somewhere in their bathroom or their kitchen and even as decor. But you know it's a real burden. We can, we can do certain work as homeowners, you know. But tile, man, that's, that's a tough one. When you start talking about art and cement and even some Destruction that has to be done to get old tile up, that is a test that most of us homeowner guys that can swing a wrench Don't don't really know how to do. So when I saw you come across A nominated, I thought this is gonna be wonderful to let the listeners know that there is a Delco business Out there. There's others, I'm sure, but in this case we have a real Delco Born and bred person here, right, anthony, from Delco originally absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3Born and raised Delaware County, we were actually voted best of Delco to last two years in a row for our tile installation business.
Speaker 2From the Delaware County Daily Times yeah, right, right, that is a. That's a fabulous Opportunity to be able to promote that here on the Good Neighbor podcast. So, anthony, can I ask this how long have you personally been, you know, doing tile in Delaware County?
Speaker 3Yeah, sure, we're actually coming up for myself over 20 years. My dad actually started the company three brothers tile named after his three sons Back in the 90s and I worked summers and after school and and I was pretty much full-time a couple years, like right out of high school.
Speaker 2I graduated oh too so so you've been running this business now in place of your father and you, your, your Are neither of your brothers working at three brothers tile.
Speaker 3No, no, my one brother was for a long time, the other just not into construction.
Speaker 2Well, time to get some sons, I guess you know, to bring to keep that business going along. Tell me, anthony, when, when we talk about Tile installation is it? Is it almost always tile removal too?
Speaker 3nine out of ten times I would say yes, there's some demolition involved in it and, like you said, it's not really a DIY project. So it does.
Speaker 2It does present some challenges on the removal, as well, yes, and and I gathered that a lot of the removal. I know in our case, if we were to get Tile done in our house, in half the case it would be get rid of that tile. It's not damaged but it just is old, doesn't seem as artistic, doesn't seem more modern. And then in the other cases it would be tile where, anthony, in the kitchen, I guess you know back splashes and things like that. But I think it's more than what I'm thinking about. Tell me what, what you're seeing today people using tile for maybe cover those areas, but what are those unique ways that tile is now becoming a practical and artistic in homes and or businesses?
Speaker 3Sure, that's a great question. So I always look at tile as a luxury surface. You know it's not needed anywhere really and but it is wanted because it's has such a variety of materials. It can be used so many places, just as an accent wall or, you know, to highlight a fireplace for your entries, back splashes. You know even outdoor spaces. There's tile rated for outdoors. There's different substrate preparation for those outdoor spaces to make sure that they stay in the test of time and weather, and you know everything at the outdoors presents. But there's so many options with it and so many varieties of tile. Now, and obviously you know your normal bathrooms, wet areas which have expanded into Such great pieces of art with stand-up showers and bathrooms in general of these wet areas with curblous entries and heated floors and all kind of different linear drains and hidden drains in the showers. There's so much to it now. It's really awesome how it's evolved over the years.
Speaker 2So you would say, I guess, that the original use, the, the primary use that people would recognize tile for from even years past, is really the practical benefit of it being able to get wet, and that's why we find tile in our bathrooms or around our kitchen. So the ability for it to get wet and not then to get discolored or find water seeking through, you know, going through the tile, that's the practicality of tile. Then we would, I guess, move on to the, the look you know, so that it doesn't have to be repainted and things like that. But I've even heard of tile being resurfaced some ways. You're not. Are you into that business as well? Or is it more removal and and putting tile up? Do you ever find yourself resurfacing tile?
Speaker 3We do not do the resurfacing, the reglazing of tile. I do have a couple companies that we would recommend to do that, but we don't do it ourselves. It is a very tedious process again, not something that you'd want to try to do yourself, even though they sell kits for it at certain Distributors. But the removal of the glaze off the tile is the important part. You can't just paint over it when you're reglazing, which a lot of people do. It looks good right away and then it starts to peel, you see, like the peeling of paint on a tiled area. So I'm not not something that we do. We do, however, offer a re grouting Service, which is will remove the grout out of the walls, primarily in like your four by four 1950s, 60s Tile, when you see all the pinks and yellows and blues and green type tiles. To restore those tiles by Regrauding it's really night and day, a lot less costly. So we do that a lot.
Speaker 2Anthony may ask this is is the? Is the work primarily? I'm having my kitchen remodeled or my bathroom remodeled and we have a contractor and we're bringing in you as the tile Installer or the contractor is bringing you in as the tile installer. The question that I guess comes from that is Can people redo tile without necessarily having to have a general contractor? Can they do a little bit of work to clean up their bathroom or their house, their kitchen some way? And tell me about those jobs where you would get a call from a homeowner and they're really saying something like I just want this done. Can you do this? What kind of a question is that that they're asking?
Speaker 3Yeah, no, that's a totally fair question. We'll come in to install your dream master bathroom from start to finish and we'll also come in and repair that little broken tile in your kitchen floor. That has just been an eyesore and you have an extra one down the basement and you just want to get it repaired. So there are times where we come in and we'll just do removal and install the backsplash in someone's kitchen. We do a lot of subcontractor work for general contractors who do big remodels, and we'll just do the tile work they bring us in just for that. We are a specialty trait, so we just specialize in the tile itself so we're able to satisfy the needs of homeowners specifically, and general contractors also.
Speaker 2Well, the listeners are hearing that, and not just the listeners who have tile needs, but the contractors are hearing that. So, if you're a contractor in Delaware County or you're a homeowner or business owner in Delaware County, pennsylvania, or beyond, as we like to say, the fringe counties of Delaware County or Chester County, pennsylvania and Montgomery County, pennsylvania, even into Bucks County, which is north of Philadelphia, philadelphia and Pennsylvania, even into Delaware, because we're in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania, there's a tile company called Three Brothers Tile and I think they prefer, because of such great outreach that they get on Facebook, to be seen primarily on Facebook. I would recommend that you would visit their Facebook page really to see some photos and to learn about Three Brothers Tile. It's on Facebook and you can see them at Three Brothers Tile on Facebook. Just search that and you'll find Three Brothers Tile out of Prospect Park in Delaware County, in the heart of Delaware County, pennsylvania.
Speaker 2We're speaking with the owner, anthony Rith, and Anthony I'm curious to know we see now countertops as tile. I'm kind of unsure whether I would want that in my house because it doesn't always seem to be as flat. But tell me, do you actually putting in countertops as well when you do tile work?
Tile Work and Radiated Heat Conversions
Speaker 3Very rarely I think I'm going to side with you on this one, bob the unevenness on a countertop when it comes to tile. Unless it's a really large panel tile, I like a smooth, solid surface on the countertop. So yes, they can be tiled, they do serve that purpose. But just having that, the grout lines in the countertop, I'm just not a big fan of it.
Speaker 2Yeah, how about you mentioned earlier that something that some people are maybe not familiar as much with with radiated heat from tile? Do you find yourself as a contractor more so performing what the homeowner or the business owner is asking, or do you make recommendations at times where you might walk into a house and see some kind of a four-year floor it isn't necessarily tile and they're talking to you about tile and you look over and you see that They've got hot water heat, radiators or something. Do you actually recommend, sometimes, conversions to radiated heat and use tile to be warmed up and then to heat your home?
Speaker 3Heat under tile. So there's a couple different ways. There's actually where the floor would provide the heat for the room and then there's a component where it's floor warming, so it's not considered a heat source. So there's a couple different methods there. But I would certainly give all my expertise and recommendations when it comes to any design on a job, but I'm by no means a designer. But I have seen a lot and I don't mind sharing my experiences.
Speaker 2That's wonderful. As any good contractor would always do, you'll recommend other contractors. If it's a space that you don't work or if there's some specialty work that needs to join in with your project, you bring those creative artists in as well. Absolutely. There's an area that seems to be cropping up lately in some of the larger homes where people have really gone big in creating their outdoor living space. Tell me about that a little bit. Are you actually being called to do tile work outside in certain places, either for decor or practical use in barbecue areas and fire pits?
Speaker 3and such like that. Yes, for sure, and it's an awesome feature just because of the way that tile itself has evolved. A lot of years ago it was just ceramic tile. There was only a few sizes and colors. Now we have porcelain, stone and glass and all different sizes, shapes and colors, and tile made to look like wood, and even porcelain tile to make it look like natural stone. But it's much more durable and maintenance free, so it's totally rated to be installed outdoors. Again, it goes back to the substrate preparation to make sure it can withstand these cold winters that we get in Pennsylvania and also these hot summers and the rain and expansion and contrastion of all the materials and just make sure that it lasts, but certainly.
Speaker 2And I would imagine, too, that, with tile being the benefit of wear and tear inside the home, those kind of things sunlight in particular, on tile outside, or really what would be wood, otherwise, say, metals that can fade and scratch it does become very practical. Might be more expensive, but as an investment and, as we always think about the curb appeal of our home, what really sells our homes when we go to sell, or how we really enjoy our homes because of the beauty that can be added to our homes. You're an artist, you know that right. Oh, thank you, yes, yes, and you're also a good neighbor, because, like I said at the beginning of the program here, there's probably none of us that don't have tile in our homes, but probably the far majority of us are frustrated because it's an area that we don't want to touch, and maybe nor should we, because it first involves demolition, and anybody that's tried to take things down, though, is that they can make a problem worse by taking something down, so you really do want to have a professional to come into your home to know how to take old tile away and put new tile up, and certainly be able to educate you as to what the latest, greatest materials are and what the trends are and really what the styles are these days.
Speaker 2Because a business owner like Anthony Ritz from Three Brothers Tile in Delco, delaware County, pennsylvania what a great experience 20 years of tile work with his team. They can give you some consulting first and then give you some pricing. But you'll learn. And, anthony, because you're that kind of a contractor and because we all have tile needs and you're out there every day installing tile work for the good people of this good county, you're a good neighbor and we want to thank you and we want to award Three Brothers Tile with the Good Neighbor Award from the Good Neighbor podcast. Thank you for coming on our program today, anthony. If you would like to reach Anthony, the telephone number for Three Brothers Tile is 610-809-9542 and, as I mentioned earlier, find them on Facebook Three Brothers Tile in Delco. Anthony, thank you for being a good neighbor and thank you for coming on the Good Neighbor podcast today.
Speaker 3Now you're welcome. Thanks for having me, Bob. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast hosted by Bob Lacy. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gnddelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.