I have a plastic shower tray to install on a floor that isn't as flat as it might be. The tray has a slight tendency to flex and rock, which apart from being annoying will create an issue at the junction to the floor tiles that will be installed after it. It has been suggested that there might be some compound that can be applied to the floor at the points of contact, to fill any gaps. Can someone suggest what this might be called?
Car body filler? (or any fibreglass loaded paste)
That's a possibility. It's a bit tricky, though, because the edge of the tray that sits on the floor is only about 5mm wide, and the gap in places is about 1mm. Getting the filler in there without smearing it on the sides is a slight problem. I could wrap the tray edges with clingwrap, but it gets complicated. A shed bathroom guy has suggested levelling compound, with a wall around the edge just outside the tray footprint. I need a max thickness of about 1mm, and I'm not sure if the levelling compound is OK that thin.
Timber or concrete floor and do you need to level under the whole tray or just at the edges and do you need to move the tray any time after fitting to gain access to traps etc for maintenance?
An initial suggestion if just the edges need sorting with only a 1mm gap, could you bed the tray on a bead of silicone mastic using packing pieces to maintain the correct height until the mastic has fully cured - you can protect the sides of the tray using wide masking tape. Note, for that small gap, packing pieces may not even be necessary.
When I did this job on a timber floor, I screwed a sheet of 20mm WBP plywood to the floor and then applied a 12mm semi-dry sand and cement screed on top and bedded the base onto this - if the floor had been made of concrete, I would have just used the screed.
On 2/06/2012 12:30 p.m., Woodworm wrote: ...
It's a timber floor. I will not need to move the tray to access the trap. I didn't think of silicone. I guess you are right - when cured the silicone bead will have enough stiffness to hold the tray pretty steady. The great thing about silicone is that it gives you plenty of time to make adjustments. More than once I've had car body filler start to go off before I was ready for it. This is an attractively simple solution.
Hi, you could also use a Flexible floor tile adhesive, fit the ply first make sure it's well screwed down around every 5-6 inches apply dots of adhesive to the ply then bed and level the tray on the adhesive. The only thing I would say is to make sure that all your waste connections to the tray are water tight before bedding the tray, apply silicone to all the joints don't rely on the maufacturers joints, once the tray is down and the adhesive has gone off it's VERY difficult to get the tray back up.
In 5 years you'll have a tray supported only by mould. Mount it on suitable ply.
NT
What is supporting the bit of tray you are going to be standing on when takinga shower? If the edges are raised to make it level and stop it rocking is ther going to be anything supporting the central areas
I'd fit and level a bit of WBP 18mm ply for the tray to sit evenly and firmly on. You could use a compound of some sort over the area of the base and bed the tray onto that. Flexible tile adhesive has been mentioned but if you don't have release agent (cling film?) between the compound and tray it will be pretty permenant.
Sorry did not realise you meant the edges of the tray - I assumed you meant the supporting brackets or feet. You silicone will be fine for a small gap on the edges.
On 3/06/2012 7:04 a.m., John Rumm wrote: ...
It's both, actually, but the edges are most important. It's done, and seems pretty solid. Thanks to all!
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