Free written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
Cambridge Pavers Kitchen Remodeling: The Orlando Owner’s Guide
If you’ve got Cambridge Pavers products in or around your kitchen and something’s failed, we stock the compatible materials and do the install. A Cambridge Pavers kitchen remodel in Orlando typically runs $14,000 – $45,000 depending on how much of the space we’re rebuilding, and we can usually have a technician out to look at it within a day or two of your call. Most owners discover a problem the same way: a paver shifts underfoot near the sink run, a bullnose edge cracks away from the cabinet toe-kick, or the thin-set under a Cambridge paver backsplash starts letting go after a few Florida summers of humidity. You’ll feel it before you see it, usually. Then you’ll see it.
We’re an independent Orlando remodeling contractor, not affiliated with Cambridge Pavers. That matters because we’re not here to sell you the brand’s whole catalog. We’re here to fix what’s broken, match what’s already installed, and give you a written price before we pick up a tool.
Which Cambridge Pavers Models This Applies To
Cambridge Pavers makes paving stones and wall systems, and in kitchens we most often see them used three ways: as a paver floor in a Florida-room-adjacent kitchen or eat-in area, as a low paver wall or knee wall that separates the kitchen from a sunken living space, and occasionally as a paver backsplash or accent wall where the homeowner wanted a rustic, old-Florida texture. The compatibility issue is less about a specific Cambridge series and more about the physical dimensions and color blend already on your job.
Here’s the gotcha most people don’t know: Cambridge runs their colors in production lots. Two pallets of the same named color, purchased six months apart, will not match exactly. The clay and pigment sourcing shifts slightly between runs. So if you’ve got a cracked paver and you want a seamless patch, the honest answer is that the new piece will be close but not identical. We tell customers this before we order anything. What we can do is pull a paver from a less-visible area of your own floor and use that for the visible patch, then drop the new piece into the hidden spot. That’s a real fix, not a close-enough guess.
Measurements matter here. Cambridge kitchen pavers are commonly 3 7/8″ x 7 7/8″ (the standard modular size) or the larger 6″ x 9″ format, and they run roughly 2 3/8″ thick for interior floors. Before you buy anything online, measure the exact face dimensions and thickness of what’s in your kitchen. A quarter-inch difference in thickness will telegraph through your mortar bed and leave a lip you’ll catch your toe on every morning. We match thickness first, color second.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Cambridge Pavers Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Hollow sound when you tap a paver. That means the mortar bed underneath has let go. In Orlando, the humidity cycle does this: the slab sweats in summer, the paver sits in a micro-layer of moisture, and the bond erodes. You’re hearing air where mortar used to be.
- A paver that rocks or shifts slightly underfoot. This is the hollow sound’s next stage. The paver has fully separated from the bed. If it’s near the dishwasher or sink, water is getting under it every time you run a load.
- Hairline cracks running through multiple pavers in a line. A single cracked paver is usually impact damage. A crack line that jumps from paver to paver in a straight path usually points to a crack in the concrete slab underneath. Central Florida slab movement is a real thing, especially in older Orlando homes built on sandy fill.
- Discolored grout or mortar joints near the sink run. That’s moisture wicking into the joint and staying there. Left alone, it degrades the mortar from the inside and the paver starts to move. We see this in College Park bungalows where the original kitchens were never built with modern water management in mind.
- Raised or lipped edge where the paver field meets tile or wood. Different materials expand at different rates. A Cambridge paver floor abutting a tile backsplash is a thermal battleground in an uninsulated 1950s kitchen. The lip is the floor winning, and it’ll only grow.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
A full Cambridge Pavers kitchen remodel in Orlando runs $14,000 – $45,000. The spread comes down to scope: are we pulling up and relaying a 200-square-foot paver floor, or are we replacing cabinetry, reworking a paver knee wall, and rebuilding the counter run too? A partial repair, like pulling up and rebedding a 50-square-foot section of lifted pavers, typically falls at the lower end, and we’ll give you a written line-item number before any work starts.
Every price we give includes materials, labor, cleanup, and our 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If the repair fails inside a year, we come back and fix it at no charge. That’s not a verbal assurance. It’s on the paperwork, the same way the price is. You’ll know exactly what the pavers cost, what the mortar bed costs, and what our labor runs. If the number can’t change, it won’t.
DIY or Call Us?
You can safely do the diagnosis. Tap on your pavers with a wooden spoon handle and note where the sound goes hollow. Look at the joint lines and see if the cracking follows a straight path. Take photos and measurements. That information helps us price the job before we arrive.
What you shouldn’t do is pull a cracked paver yourself. Getting it out without chipping the neighbors takes a grinder, a cold chisel, and a feel for how deep the mortar bed runs. One wrong angle and you’ve turned a single-paver repair into a three-paver repair. And if the problem is a slab crack underneath, replacing the paver is dressing the wound while the bone keeps moving. In that case, you want a crew that knows Orlando slabs. That’s us. Call (850) 427-6454 and we’ll take a look before you spend money on materials that won’t fix what’s actually wrong.
FAQs
A properly installed Cambridge paver floor in an Orlando kitchen should last 25 – 40 years before the mortar bed needs significant work. The pavers themselves, being concrete, will easily outlast that. What fails first in our climate is always the bond, not the stone. Humidity-driven moisture, cleaning water from the sink run, and slab movement are what shorten the lifespan, and all three are manageable with the right underlayment and joint maintenance.
Sometimes. If the crack is a single clean break and the paver is still solidly bonded, we can epoxy the pieces back together, color-match a filler for the seam, and you’ll get years more out of it. If the crack runs through the full thickness or the paver is already loose, replacement is the honest fix. We’ll tell you which one you’re looking at rather than sell you the more expensive option.
A small repair, like rebedding a few loose pavers or replacing a single cracked piece, is usually done in one day. A larger section or a full remodel runs one to three weeks depending on scope. We’ll give you a real arrival window and a written timeline before the job starts, and we stick to it. You won’t be sitting in a torn-up kitchen for a month waiting on a crew that isn’t coming.
We keep common modular sizes and a range of neutral color blends on hand for quick patches. For a specific color lot match, we order from our supplier and it typically arrives within a week. We also stock and install materials from KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone for the cabinet and countertop sides of a kitchen remodel, so the paver work and the rest of the kitchen can be handled by the same crew on the same schedule.
No. The price we give you in writing before the job starts is the price you pay when it’s done. If we open up the floor and find something we couldn’t see from the surface, like a slab crack that needs addressing, we’ll stop, show you what we found, and give you a written change order for the additional work before we touch it. You’ll never get a surprise number at the door. This part of the job is non-negotiable for us. Give you the number first, then pick up the tool.
Written by Trevor Nash, Owner, Penhallow Remodeling Orlando at Penhallow Remodeling Orlando, serving Orlando and nearby areas.
