Shower Advice Needed Urgently

I bought one of those rather expensive shower bases recently Home Depot sells that are meant to be tiled over. It was made of a plastic membrane and was much lighter than I’d expected. It hasn’t leaked so far . . . time will tell.

Install a rubber membrane over the subfloor being careful to fold up the corners and fun it up the wall several inches (the wonderboard on the wall will cover the nail heads and the top of the membrane. – keep the wonderboard a quarter of an inch off the floor).

have a professional lay a mud bed over the membrane properly sloped toward the drain.

install the wall wonderboard.

Lat tile in thinset – floor first – then walls.

There are still many buildings in Manhattan that I work in that require field-fabricated lead pans on all new and replacement shower installations. The truth is that, like anything else, if exposed to enough water, they can wear away over time and leak. But they shouldn’t see much water if the tile work is done well and maintained. There are boatloads of 50-plus-year lead pan shower installations still in use all over the city.

The other option is to use a pvc or vinyl liner, which is much easier to work with but hasn’t got the history that lead does.

Using either material, the installation will require riding up a minimum of 12″ on the shower walls. That means you’ll haver to make inside corners with your lining.
Those are the weakest points of the pan. If you’re going to DIY it, make sure you have this part figured out before you begin. Many career plumbers can’t get this right. It can be very difficult.

Make sure you’re using a drain assembly compatible with the installation. It should have a clamping ring with channels to deal with any water that might get through the tile to reach the drain.

CH2007, you are absolutely right to be asking these questions, and I do think you can educate yourself on-line pretty well about the dangers of not doing showers right.

The link provided by CMU is a good start, but I would argue that most licensed and insured contractors still do it the old fashioned way (from scratch a lead liner w/ mud/metal mesh,thinset and tile).

I too, would argue against the lead liner and consider newer-age liner or pan materials. Pre-formed (including slope, drain cut-out, etc.) is the way to go if your shower pan and drain placement conforms to those offered by the manufacturers. On the link from CMU, you will see an add from Schluter, which is the system I used, although I had to form my own pan. The membranes and drain systems they provide convinced me.

And while Wonderboard is an ideal backer for tiles on shower walls and bathroom floors, a shower pan area that is prone to constant moisture and that will eventually get under tiles when grout fails needs special attention. I would ask your contractors what they are doing to guard against this.

I would also pay a lot of attention to the slope of the floor in the areas that will get wet, including the sloping of the floor under the liner if you use a liner instead of a pre-formed pan. This floor should be pre-sloped before the liner is installed, so that any water that gets through to the liner will also drain towards the weep holes that come with conventional drains.

However, what you are describing sounds like it might be something different in that there will be no shower curb. Will the shower water drain into a drain more central to the bathroom? If so, consider carefully.