Shower pan repair.

[Phillip]

Can a shower pan be properly repaired without tearing out all of the tile?

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[Scottpat]

No, not in my opinion.

I have seen some attempts and they have always looked bad and still leaked. I have seen some that the owners had epoxy or something similar poured over the entire shower floor and then brushed up the sides a few inches. Looks like they have placed the entire shower floor under a plastic sheet..

[Billy_Bob]

I'd rip that all out and start by replacing the wood flooring in that area.

Then let's see... The tile probably goes up the wall too, then couldn't get tile to match. So then replace that tile too, etc...

[kurt]

That isn't even a shower floor drain receptor; it's just a floor drain. Lacking vinyl pan liner and a proper receptor, it can't work. Can't.

Tear it all out and start over.

I'm seeing this problem on high end houses nowadays. No one knows how to install a mortar bed shower anymore.

[StevenT]

Laticrete make a sealer that can be troweled on, and I forget the name of the company that makes a white rubber like goop, that come in a sausage pack and can also be troweled on. I've used them both and had good luck. Both of course were on concrete. There is also a "vinyl like" sheeting that can be used in place of lead. But for my money, I prefer lead (or copper pans).

If you really want a quality job, use a technique called "pre-sloping." Pre sloping, is when you slope the concrete before installing the pan. This way, any water that seeps past the tile will drain towards the shower drain. A proper shower drain has weep holes at it's base, below the drain opening, below the tile. Any water that soaks into the base can drain out.

If you install the pan flat and then use "mud" to slope the tiles, water will stay in the pan and you will end up with problems associated with moisture.

This shower is in a hi-rise condo in Manhattan. Every time the shower ran, it leaked into the unit below.

Notice no curb.

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Now that it's open, you can see they used the wrong type of drain. In order to cover the clamp on the bottom of the drain, they leaded in a "cone." There are no weep holes, and look how deep it is until the water reaches the drain. In essence, they created created a "sink."

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This is the new base, with a curb and the correct drain. Unfortunately, in this case, the pan was not pre-sloped.

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Mudded, setting the drain height.

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Tiling

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Finished product.

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[Phillip]

It looked like crap to me but I was just checking to see if there was a way to do it with out tear it completely out.

I report it as not proper and recommend that they get some in there that knew what they where doing.

[sirch]

Hey Phillip, do you remember seeing that sluder rep at the ashi-south meet? He had that shower system that Mike Holmes uses alot, why not recommend that to your clients.

[Phillip]

Hi Chris,

I do recommend that system to my clients, but right now it is in the home owner hands.

[Tom Raymond]

There were no less than a dozen different systems at the IBS last year, all designed to take the guess work out of sloping the pan. EPS foam wedges, modular plastic furring, custom one piece plastic pans, you name it. I think the reason we see so much crap out there is the proliferation of products designed to eliminate the "skill" from the skilled trades.

A proper mud job ain't that hard to do.

Tom

[mthomas1]

Pretty much every liner manufacturer is going to specify a pre-slope below the liner, for example it's step 2 in the Oatey instructions here.

[kurt]

It's not "sluder", it's Schluter Systems.

You're talking about the Kerdi Shower system.

[Phillip]

Well I went back to the house the day to test the shower head since it was turn off. (See my other post) The water came out of the shower head just fine and I filled up the shower pan and it leaked. I was not surprised.

The pilot light was off on the furnace and they had it on. It needs replaced Friday and it still needs replaced today. Major rust, movement of the flames Crack in Chamber) and a 1978 model.

[Bain]

I got lots of callbacks because of faulty shower pans when I was a builder, simply because there's a dearth of tradesmen who actually know how to install them.

The easy answer is to use an acrylic pan. They have lips that the concrete board sit on, and flanges that sort of "flash" the rear portion of the concrete board. Never had a single callback on those suckers.

And in case you're wondering, if the walls were attractively tiled, no one complained about the--usually-white pan below.

[kurt]

Yeah, but there's nothing like a really nice mortar bed shower.

Nothing wrong w/acrylic, but it's plastic. S'got no funk appeal.

Tile makes me smile.......[:-eyebrow

[randynavarro]

Tile makes me smile.......[:-eyebrow

Yeah, but grout makes me pout . . .

I like the fiberglass pans. They clean much easier!