Helping to Flip a ‘Zombie’ House

MAPEI Corporation recently teamed up with the crew on A&E’s popular home-remodeling television show “Zombie House Flipping” to turn a derelict property in Orlando, FL, into a showplace.

The crew had used MAPEI’s products unofficially throughout the course of the show to great effect. Season 4 would see them tackling their most ambitious renovation, a home so run-down that they referred to it among themselves as “3,000 square feet [279 m²] of hell.” The home featured multiple types of flooring, including terrazzo, sloped concrete, mud bed and an old brick patio that had been remodeled into the home’s kitchen – but the patio’s brick floor remained.

Even though “Zombie House Flipping” is a TV show, the investments made on the properties are very real. The show’s crew needed to see a return and were worried that the floors alone on this house would eat up the profits and spell their doom.

“It was 3,000 square feet [279 m²] of wildly different substrates – in different stages of disrepair,” said Logan Reavis, Technical Services Manager for MAPEI Corporation. Knowing that, despite the deterioration, the home was situated in a desirable location and had “good bones,” the Zombie House Flippers reached out to MAPEI and our Technical Services.

Specs and products: To “hell” and back

“The show notes called this house ‘3,000 square feet [279 m²] of hell’,” Reavis said. He toured the home and spent time with the show’s crew members Ashlee Casserly and Keith Ori, discussing what they wanted to achieve. Reavis then made product recommendations based upon his findings, providing technical assistance off and on camera.

Reavis described the “hellish” project: “There were 10 rooms. Some floors had uneven or cracked concrete slabs, new concrete slabs, old concrete slabs. One room featured an old mud bed. A couple rooms were the original terrazzo. The only thing they all had in common was the fact that it was a mess.”

A mess, yes. But it was no match for MAPEI. See the sidebar for the products that Reavis specified for the repair of the floor. RM North America 36 / 2022 11 Not only were the products easy to install, they also turned “3,000 square feet [279 m²] of hell” into “San Juan House.” In fact, the Zombie House Flippers were correct about the home’s “good bones”: Once repaired and renovated, the home easily flipped and was the largest sale to date in all four seasons of the show.

For the full story of how MAPEI’s concrete restoration and floor installation system solutions – as well as Reavis’ specifications – helped turn a “zombie” house into a showplace, tune in to “Zombie House Flipping” on A&E’s HOME.MADE.NATION segment at www.aetv.com/homemade. The MAPEI episode, titled “San Juan” (Season 4, Episode #18), originally aired on July 30, 2022. Check your local listings for "Zombie House Flipping" airdates and times. Episodes also stream online at www.aetv.com/shows/zombie-house-flipping.