building a new shower pan

Todd 18 years ago

To All:

I'm going to build a custom shower pan for the purpose of tiling. I've never done anything like this before, so I want to make sure I'm doing this right...

I'll be putting this in my basement, on the concrete slab. This shower is going to replace the fiberglass shower pan that was destroyed and removed. Most instructions I see for doing this call for laying down roof paper, or some type of barrier, before putting down the initial sloping sand mix,. This, i understand is designed to preven moisture from wicking into the concrete.

If I'm putting sand mix down, and then a 40 MIL CPE liner, and then thickset, and then the thinset and tile, do I need the roof paper at the bottom? Or is this for putting a shower on a plywood base?

Any thoughts/suggestions/words of wisdom?

-Thanks in advance,.

Todd

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kzin 18 years ago

I'm all for DIY myself but from what I've read about this you may want to think twice. Everything I've seen indicates this is a job for a pro.

good luck ml

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Bob F 18 years ago

That didn't stop me.

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Frank Warner 18 years ago

Me, neither.

There are a variety of online sources for DIY shower pans. The folks over at Taunton Press have one of the better tutorials. It costs you $20 or so. Money well spent if you want to do it right.

-Frank

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RicodJour 18 years ago

Get your hands on Michael Byrne's book, Setting Tile put out by the Taunton Press (of Fine Homebuilding fame). Your local library probably has a copy but it's definitely worth owning. You should also visit the John Bridge tile forums. There are a lot of pros and skilled amateurs that frequent those forums and are quite helpful and encouraging.

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Todd 18 years ago

Thanks for the advice.

Do you know if it covers building a shower pan on an existing basement slab? My primary concern is making sure the pan is built correctly for being placed on a slab. All instructions that I have are for placing the shower pan on a plywood subfloor.

- Thanks,

Todd

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