Florida Curb-less Walk In Waterproofed Tile Shower

Here is a shower we did in Bradenton, Florida which is between Sarasota and Tampa. The homeowner wanted to update the old master bathroom shower in their 12 year old home. The shower also has some grout mold stains along with some drywall damage outside of the shower window. We took out the old glass window enclosure and ripped out the old 6×6 white & green ceramic wall tile. The glass installer drilled through the cultured marble sill and that’s where the damage was coming from that was ruining the drywall. Also there was no waterproofing membrane on the walls or in the shower pan and a regular drain connected to a pipe was used, where did they think the water would go that got into the mud bed ? It didn’t go anywhere but sit in the mud and fester, grew mold and started the failure of the shower. The bottom row of wall tile was also less then half way attached to the cementboard and they used mastic to set the tile. This is not recommended and highly discouraged by the TCNA (Tile Council North America) and good tile contractors.

Prior to the rip out we took caution to protect the existing tile floor and carpet in the areas we were walking through. We installed the Kerdi drain and did the mud bed on the shower floor before leaving the first day. This allows us to install the Kerdi waterproof membrane on the shower walls and floors the next day and not waste time waiting for the mud to dry or having to work on a fresh mud shower floor. We then installed the Schluter Kerdi membrane with Laticrete 317 which is an unmodified thinset that Schluter requires to be used with Kerdi. We also installed the Kerdi seal pipe nipple opening and the mixing valve opening seal that comes with the Kerdi drain in the package. They stop any body over spray water that gets behind the control or shower head escutcheons . Then we installed the Kerdi in the niche, on the curved window sill wall and on the shower floor followed by the Kerdi band which ties in the walls & corners to make a waterproofed system. The good thing about using the Kerdi sheet membrane is you don’t have to wait for it to dry to start installing your tile.

We then did the tile layout on the walls and marked our lines on the Kerdi. Since the floor rolled in we screwed in a level ledger board so we can start off our first row of tile and not have to wedge the bottom row or have the tile slide. We weren’t worried about puncturing the membrane since we could easily put Kerdi fix or a liquid membrane over the small holes once we removed them. We decided on using the liquid membrane RedGard since we had some left over from a prior project. We also used the Redgard over the niche, shower sill corners and where the Kerdi and the main bath floor met up to ensure a good seal and for added seam protection. The homeowner also wanted an accent band eye level in the shower so we designed one using the 2×2 shower floor tile, 6×6 matching tile cut diagonal and a resin liner from our local tile distributor. They loved the design since it went well with the look of the shower tile and the decor of the home. We wrapped the tile in the corners so the pattern would continue and also made it continue through the niche and made cuts for the inside curved wall and special keystone radius cuts for the top header of the shower window.

We laid out the shower floor tile with the 2×2 porcelain tile and the Kerdi drain grate and noticed we had a little 4 legged inspector checking in on us as we tiled. He was satisfied with our work and left……. right after we gave him a few french fries for his approval. We set the shower floor tile using the same Laticrete unmodified white thinset and using our rubber grout float tapped the sheet lightly into the thinset to make sure they were embedded good. The next day we started grouting with a sanded grout and once done we caulked the corner with a sanded matching caulk to allow for a soft joint. Once the grout set up and dried more we did the final wash to remove any grout haze or powder and then we installed a custom granite sill that was fabricated to the same template as the previous old cultured marble sill that used to be there and adjusted it to fit the current install.

enjoy the pictures from the projects ……

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