![]() The whole point of redoing a shower floor is to make the new floor perfectly sloped. SECOND, use masking tape around the floor perimeter for a guide. ![]() ![]() The polymer additives in modified thinset will allow you to make a stiff mix that will still set up and cure to a firm finish. You’ll also need to use less water than normal for your reslope mix, since you will need the thinset to be thick enough to actually hold a slope. You want the reslope layer to be thin as possible, and modified thinset is less grainy and therefore easier to smooth out than basic unmodified thinset. But if you do want to give it a go yourself (or just want to make sure that your contractor is working smartly), then here are some tips.įIRST, use a quality modified thinset mix. Using a skimcoat layer of thinset to achieve the same finish takes finesse. Sloping a shower floor from scratch is already a finicky process even utilizing easy to work with drypack deck mud. This first step was the trickiest, and probably not something that you’d want to attempt without some previous practice. Easy sourcing is especially critical nowadays in the midst of an ongoing multiyear pandemic. The nice thing about classic tile is it’s generally both inexpensive and easy to source. The rest of the master bath was done in a midcentury -style classic black and white decor, so the homeowners wanted their new shower floor to fit this same general aesthetic. Raise the drain grate and regrout the shower floor and perimeter.Retile with a nice retro art deco mosaic pattern.Reslope the existing pebbled surface using precisely mixed thinset.The homeowners were enthusiastic to try fixing their painful and unsanitary shower floor without having to rip out everything for a complete redo. Did it work? Read on to find out! The Plan So the primary challenge on this project was to smooth and reslope the existing rough pebbled surface with the least amount of added thinset possible, and to re-tile with a new shower floor that the homeowners would love. Instead, it’s the most conservative approach to fixing a badly tiled shower floor without compromising an otherwise well done watertight shower install. Therefore, tiling on top of an existing tile layer won’t create a moisture sandwich. Remember that tile and grout are not waterproof. This approach also doesn’t risk damaging the waterproofing.Ī proper waterproofing liner is installed BELOW the shower floor tile! So, just adding a bit more mortar and tile on top of the previous layer doesn’t increase the overall shower pan thickness by much. Traditional shower construction already has a ~2-in concrete mortar layer between the waterproofing and surface tile layers. The most conservative “do no harm” approach for re-doing the floor of an otherwise watertight shower is therefore to simply re-tile right over top of the existing floor tile. The next step after that is completely replacing the entire shower. And accidentally puncturing the waterproofing layer of an otherwise watertight shower floor is like cracking your car’s engine block. There are several different ways to properly waterproof a shower, and some of those methods involve putting the waterproofing layer quite close to the tile floor surface. Since there were no signs of any shower leakage, carving into the tile floor would have been very risky. Unfortunately the new homeowners didn’t know what kind of waterproofing had been used for this shower. ![]() Sometimes it’s possible to remove and replace shower floor tile if you know beforehand exactly what kind of waterproofing was used below the surface. Very disappointing for the new homeowners who didn’t want to spend each day showering in sandals with their eyes closed. So this shower floor was painful to stand on, ugly to look at, and unsanitary to boot. And finally, the original installer apparently struggled to make clean cuts in the mosaic pebble mats and “finished” with a terrible grouting job. An aggressive 1/4-in per foot pitch is particularly crucial for highly textured pebble mosaic surfaces like this, since any slow to drain dead spots will really encourage surface bacterial growth. The whole shower floor also wasn’t completely evenly sloped to the drain. A keen OCD eye will definitely spot the seams (which could have been eliminated with some advance planning). In addition to being painful for tender feet, this pebble mosaic also wasn’t expertly laid out.
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