Laying Shower Tile - Do It Right Or Else



Posted: Monday, September 15, 2008

by
http://www.installingceramictile.net

The real challenge in laying shower tile is getting the floor done correctly.  Shower walls and even the ceiling are much like any other application.  Of course the ceiling is a little tricky, since it could fall on you!  But that's not very likely and you can prop it up until it dries with some 2x4 pieces.  But the shower floor is tricky and what you can't see is the really important part.

As you probably know, the part of the floor you can see, the tile and grout, is not waterproof.  Water seeps right through the surface of the floor, especially through the grout.  In order for a shower to be watertight there is a water barrier under the surface of the floor.  Now in years past that barrier was a lead pan or sometimes it was a coat of tar over concrete.  Sometimes that worked for years, sometimes it didn't.  And when it didn't, you had a perfect set-up for a wet, expensive mess.

Now there are two main approaches to waterproofing the shower pan for a ceramic tile shower.

There are three companies including Tile Redi, Schluter and Wedi that supply systems that include a waterproof membrane as part of a complete system for constructing a shower floor ready for setting tile.  The systems either include a plastic pan integrated with side panels or the walls built up using foam and vinyls sheets with adhesives to build a waterproof layer.  In each case no mortar is used except to provide a base to support the supplied pan.

These systems eliminate much of the skill required to build a masonry shower floor, but the material costs are high.  The showers go together fast by a practiced technician and there is very little cure time needed.

The modern systems work great and time will tell how they hold up.  Still the majority of showers are built using a more traditional method.  The traditional method builds a masonry base with a  critical feature.  The critical feature is a vinyl membrane that is built into the floor to form a pool with the sides running several inches up the wall of the shower. 

The actual sequence of construction is to pour a bottom layer of mortar sloped toward a special shower drain.  The drain has two sets of drain holes one above the other.  The bottom masonry layer is sloped to the bottom drain holes.

The vinyl sheet is then installed over the masonry layer with a hole cut in the membrane to fit over the drain.  The membrane is glued to the base to form a waterproof cover over the bottom of the shower and up the sides.  The drain holes are covered with pea gravel to keep the holes open.

Then a second layer of mortar is poured over the vinyl membrane sloped toward the drain.  This layer is the base for the ceramic tile which is the bottom of the shower when it's completed.  The tile is set in place so the tile is even with the top of the drain and then the grout is applied and that completes the basic shower floor.

Of course there are the complications of building thresholds and making sure there are no leaks in the corners.  But those are the basic steps.

Puzzled about how to build a ceramic tile shower? Need more information? Maybe even a video? Visit our site for more tips on laying shower tile.

 

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