Cement backer board -- How and why did they do this?

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I've just started remodeling a tiled shower. According to a video I saw on line, once the tiles have been removed the screws holding the backer board to the studs should be visible and can be removed, thus allowing the backer board to be removed.

I've removed the tiles from one section, but there is no sign of any screws. I was able to get a pry bar under an edge and pry it off, revealing nails whose heads were tight up against the mesh and driven into the wood, but with no hole on the surface and no evidence of a hole having been filled after the nails were driven in..

Further, either the backer board was somehow wrapped around an outside corner -- and with good clean straight edges -- or someone had managed to cut a clean straight edge in the cement part, leaving the mesh to be wrapped around the corner and nailed under the backer board on the adjacent surface. I don't know which, as I haven't yet removed the backer board from that second surface.

Perce

[gfretwell]

That doesn't sound like backer board. It is stucco. Basically they nailed up wire mesh and trowlled type S mortar over it ... a largely lost art.

[RicodJour]

It's unclear from your description what type of backer board you have and exactly what is going on. Post some pictures on a free hosting site and post the links back here.

R

[jamesgangnc]

You can buy that mesh. I have a roll I use on seams.

[DerbyDad03]

I think the OP meant the metal mesh that gets nailed to the studs as lath for troweled on cement underlayment. I have that in my bathroom.

A real pain if you're trying to just remove the walls and not the ceiling since you have to cut the metal lath along the junction. Not easy to do neatly.

I ended up using 1/4" drywall over the existing plaster ceiling to clean up the junction and start with a fresh surface for painting.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I think you and gfretwell are correct about the mesh having been nailed in place first as a support for troweled-on cement. I guess that would also explain why there's sheetrock underneath what I thought was backer board.

The ceiling tiles are glued to plywood, and I was going to remove them anyway.

Perce

[RicodJour]

The whole think sounds a fright. Yank it out and start anew.

R

[JIMMIE]

I ran into that remodeling a bathroom in my dad's home. The bedroom adjacent to the bath had a second tiny closet that we wanted to incorporate into the bath and add a door between the bedroom and bath. Seemed to be an easy job until we discovered how everything was tied together. The whole bathroom had to be gutted down to the joist and studs.

Jimmie