Once you have your layout intended, fixtures chosen and tile and grout picked for your new shower, you can start planning its structure — the bones of the occupation. There are a lot of ways to build a shower. Which one is right for your new bathroom?
Obviously, local planning procedures will play a huge role in this. Do your homework: Telephone your regional planning office and see what the prerequisites are for constructing a shower from your town. Do not stop there, however. Look the Tile Council of North America’s or Terrazzo Tile and Marble Association of Canada’s guidelines for shower preparation.
Shoberg Custom Homes
The suggestions for waterproofing can often seem kind of excessive — is all that really necessary? Only in case you would like to safeguard your investment. Not every builder or inspector will require certain waterproofing updates. These measures cost money — which is not perfect once you’re constructing to market fast or will need to keep prices to a minimum.
So where’s the balance? Let’s look at some crucial drainage pointers and waterproofing products which can help you find the proper measures and practices.
Before Photo
World Contracting LLC
Standard rubber lining. Most showers start with a fundamental three-piece clamping drain along with a rubberized liner. This system makes it possible for the shower inspection to happen right away — before the framing is finished, prior to shingles, prior to insulation, before reduced voltage and prior to windows occasionally.
The water in the top right corner means that the lining didn’t drain completely at first. Fortunately, this tile crew checked it with a flooding test and had it mended.
Hint: Make sure all the water from the flooding test drains away. You don’t want to start tile prep over a lining installed like this. A legitimate tile expert will double check this before the tile prep happens, as the builders building this shower failed.
Before Photo
Bill Fry Construction – Wm. H. Fry Const. Co..
Hot mopped waterproofing. If you live in California, you’ve probably seen a sexy mopped shower floor (the black occupying in the lower portion with this picture), which can be quite common there. In this photo you can also observe some reinforcing wire in place over the walls for a screed coating (concrete fill) or mud float (concrete prep for tile).
Technically, this is not much different from a rubber liner, however, a sexy mop expert will have a preslope (a 1/4-inch-per-foot incline below the waterproofing) therefore that the shower will drain completely after the flooding test. Since they’re prepared onsite, sexy mops also follow contours better than sheet membranes.
Before Photo
Tarkus Tile, Inc..
Screeded or floated walls. Here you can see another step in a screeded or floated wall, which is also quite common in California baths. This really is a dying art in other areas of the world; however, there are still numerous tile masters (like Tarkus Tile, who did the work revealed) who practice this. The expert utilizes a screed — a flat strip of timber, plastic or metal — as a straightedge to painstakingly level the mortar jacket onto a wall. The screed boards are removed during the procedure and filled with much more mortar, leaving an ideal wall. Walls similar to this can be prepared perfectly horizontal, plumb and square.
For others (including myself), tile backer boards are a safer alternative to getting shower partitions up and ready for waterproofing. Much like waterproofing membranes, there are many backer boards to select from. Concrete board will be the ideal.
Waterproofing Colours. Waterproofing products come in many colors and styles. The one used here is a cementitious waterproofing from Ardex known as 8+9. This is my new favorite product, since it can function for many different shower builds. It’s superhandy for shower niches and benches — they are normally more difficult to watertight with more traditional waterproofing products, but this product, applied with a brush and roller, simplifies the procedure.
In this photo you can see the shower is filled with water. I had just put the flooding test before taking the image.
Shower niches. Shower niches built into the design need special attention. It’s a good idea to incline the bottom of the niches and fortify the corners to improve the strength of the design.
Flood testing. Each shower build needs its own steps and security measures. This shower is under a flooding test — if the drain is blocked with a test plug in and the shower is tested to see if it holds water.
This ought to be achieved for a period of 72 hours for maximum security; 24 in the very least. Sometimes local codes need only 15 minutes of testing, but assessing for longer periods can give you reassurance that the shower was built properly.
By Any Design Ltd..
Flood test box. This is actually the second portion of a flooding test: the evaporation-control dish or box. The water will evaporate at the same speed of the water from the shower, so that you understand what could be attributed to evaporation and what could be credited to potential leaks.
Tarkus Tile, Inc..
The right drain option. Waterproofing a shower is simply one portion of the equation; getting the right drain for the shower is key as well.
The shower often dictates the drain option. In this photo the linear drain from Noble Company was set up directly at the wall and has an offset drain place. For various reasons, a centre outlet drain may not have worked in this installation. An offset drain like this can help expand a shower’s usable space in case it could be achieved without moving existing drain lines.
Surface area and cleaning. The best way to wash the brand new drain is another thought. A little drain is easier to clean, since it has less surface area. Linear drains have more surface area and will need to be cleaned more often.
I use easy kitchen scrub brushes to wash our shower jobs. They make short work of a dreadful task.