I'm intending to build a new shower room upstairs. We've always had problems with showers leaking through the floor. Does anyone know if there's any sort of commercially available system that provides a complete seal for the shower or the shower room?
Bill
I take it you mean for wet room type showers rather than ones with a conventional tray?
I know what you mean. I've often wondered if there isn't some way of fibreglassing the whole floor area with an upturn at the wall so you effectively have a paddling pool area to start work in. But I'm afraid it's an over reaction to yet another damp stain on the ceiling.
There are various sheets that can be used to tank under the tiles. Try searching for WOP or MAXO or Tilesafe membranes.
There's also Protan, not available in this country I believe yet:
If you have cable or Sky look for "Holmes on Homes" - on almost every day. It is a Canadian program where Mike Holmes fixes cowboy builders' disasters.
At least one wet room done up beautifully per week, using fixings and fittings that we can only dream about in this country... (unless you rob a bank first)
========================================= Coram make shower trays with a 1" riser in various configurations for this purpose.
Cic.
Either really. I'm open to suggestions.
Bill
Getting a seal with a conventional tray etc is pretty straight forward. Materials like Aquapanel can be handy for the walls adjacent to the shower (its like a waterproof replacement for plasterboard). Making sure the tray is firm and level etc. Seal the tray-wall gap with silicone. Tile down to just above the tray (say leaving a few mm), and silicone again. Grout with a waterproof grout, but use silicone on the corner where wall meets wall. Finally finish off with lithofin grout protector to keep it all looking nice and white.
Wet room type floors are more involved...
I'm doing this job at the moment - so interested to see your post...
In my case I'm fitting a shallow 'resin' tray on top of a timber / ply platform - into an already-tiled shower area. (Messy, I know - but that's life!)
So - just to make sure I've got this right - I'll bed the tray down on something suitable (combed tile adhesive seems favourite at the moment), then get a good line of mastic between the existing wall-tiles and the new tray.
Then new wall-tiles (on top of the existing tiles)
Then silicone new tiles to tray and up the wall corner joint, grouting the remaining tiles normally..
Sounds about right ??
Many thanks Adrian
by "resin" I take it you mean the so called stone resin (i.e. concrete) rather than fibreglass resin?
they usually recommend 1/2" of mortar, but I have also seen it done on bonding plaster. The main objective with these trays is to make sure they are fully supported over most of the base - and that may not be totally flat. Hence you need something that can take up any variation between you ply surface and the tray.
Yup, leave a tile thickness gap at the bottom to make a good key for the silicone.
Yup.
Here is one I did earlier. I used render over WBP ply on this one which may have been overkill, but I never like the way tiles stick to ply directly ;-) They tray was sat on mortar. The easiest way I found to do this was to bed a couple of strips of plastic trunking into the mortar to enable the tray to be slid into place. Then I withdrew the trunking to drop it down on the bed before tamping it level and into place.
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John, can you tell us a bit more about the rendering (mortar or plaster?) and the use of the mesh? Thanks.
Yes - looks very similar to yours - except the drain is half-way along one of the sides, rather than in the corner. Not fitted one of these before - done several of the old-fashioned fiberglass ones....
OK - the manufacturer did get all huffy about using anything other than mortar.... but for the life of me I can't see why a nicely-combed layer of tile cement won't do the job... after all - the tray's only just a big tile . Like your plan of supporting the tray on some conduit or similar and then sliding it out gently - they're heavy old things, aren't they ?
My installation is very similar to yours - did wonder about routing out the underside of the plywood, haven't actually fitted the trap to the tray yet and will probably do the routing if only to alow some 'slack' when coupling up the waste pipe...
Checked yesterday with the spirit level and the top of the tray is level in all directions, and doesn't rock - so looking to just get a 3mm-ish layer of tile adhesive on the ply and off we go !
Looks good - well done... May need some long, narrow border tiles in our deisgn just to break up a
6ft x 8ft wall a bit - but I may end up custom-making something in kiln-fused glass (apparently the paint scheme is to be blue - and I just happen to have some nice blue streaky glass in the Studio..... - but that's the fun bit - got the 'grunt' work to do first!)Thanks for the advice Adrian
In a general case you mean?
Basically if you need to render or plaster a surface that render or plaster would not normally bond to, then you need expanded metal lath (the mesh) to provide a key and support structure for it. If works flat on a wall, but can sometimes be better spaced from it a small amount so that it incorporates into the mix and acts as re-enforcement.
I used it on the outside as well:
More details in the catalogue here:
As long as there are no voids in there it ought to be ok...
Indeed - ok if its against one wall and there are two of you, but with one person, into a corner, or worse, into an alcove you need some way of getting the far end in place without dislodging all the bedding.
I think I was making life harder for myself by over engineering that. Had I have used 1/2" as they instructions suggested the trap would have gone on ok. However I used 3/4" ply, and that added to the bedding lifted the trap just a little too high.
Yup, making the border tiles could save quite a bit. As I commented on the tiling page, the listello tiles (around the middle) cost as much as the rest of the room!
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