Few questions about shower build

[jokertoker]

I've been watching a bunch of videos on tiling a shower and think I got a good feel for what should be done. There is so many different ways to go about it, that it can be very confusing when starting out. But assuming I can find everything I need, I'm planning on going with lacticrete's hydro ban system.

I'm planning on doing a dry pack mud deck (forgive me if terminology is off), with at least a 1/4 inch fall to the drain. Once this is done I'll put the hydro ban fabric membrane over the mud deck, and using the strips to go over the seams where the wall/mud deck meet. I'll also use the pre fab inside/outside corners in all the appropriate locations, including the shower curb. The shower curb will be covered with the fabric membrane. The curb will be at least 2 inches above the finished drain.

For the walls I will be using the hydro ban foam board, attached to the framing with appropriate coated screws. Now I would use the adhesive/sealant for all the seams when joining the foam boards, and all the screw penetrations. Will also go back and make sure seams are covered well with sealant.

Now my walls are out of plumb pretty good and was planning on floating the foam boards. I'm not sure if this is allowed with hydro ban, but seen Sal mention in a video that it is legal to do with the kerdi board. I know I know, different vendor, but hoping someone can address this here, if it is allowed with the hydro ban. I emailed a hydro ban rep, to ask them but haven't heard back yet. I would float with the correct thinset mortar.

Another question is how far down should I put the foam board into the mud pan? Should I jam up the foam board directly to the mud pan, or maybe leave a little gap or so? It will get the fabric membrane to seal up the corner but wonder if it makes a difference? I'm planning on jamming it up to the mud pan.

Now here is where my main questions come in. I'm putting in a glass door (See pics). So my worry is how to go about attaching the hardware to the shower without messing up all the waterproofing. I plan on putting up wood studs to anchor to, but after thinking about it, it seems pointless as the screws would penetrate the fabric membrane. Or would this be ok as long as use the sealant inside the penetration holes? Or would using those plastic anchors be enough for the glass panels? So trim down the screw for the anchor so that it will be just long enough to go through the tile. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Kman]

Welcome to the forum, JW.

I'll answer the easy questions first. (For future reference, if you have several questions in one post, it helps if you number them.)

I'd set the foam board down below the level of the mud, enough that the mud will hold the board against the studs. An inch or so above the floor is fine.

If your walls aren't in plane, you'd make it easier on yourself if you fix it at the framing stage by sistering studs, planing them, or partially cutting them and pushing them into place. If you've not worked with thinset mortar or foam board, floating the board out with mortar is not something you want to try your first time out. Also, it's not expressly approved by the manufacturer, so you're on your own when you do something like that. Maybe someone else here has some experience with what you're trying to do.

For installing the door, it's acceptable to drill into vertical surfaces, like the door jambs, fill the hole with silicone, and attach the hardware.

What you absolutely don't want to do is drill into a horizontal surface, like the curb, to install hardware for any reason. Even with silicone in the hole, over time it will leak. Tracks or stops mounted on the curb can be secured with silicone, taped in place, and allowed to dry for a day or two.

[cx]

Welcome, JW.

Yes, the "wet shimming" of KerdiBoard over wood framing with thinset mortar is sanctioned by Schluter, I think it's one of the worst recommendations in the industry. But you can certainly do it with your HydroBan board if you want. Our resident Laticrete rep may or may not visit the thread with information on that.

I recommend you either correct your wall framing or shim your wallboard using some solid material suited to the purpose. A number of ways to do either, depending upon just how far out of plane or/and out of plumb your studs are.

It's not necessary to embed your foam wallboard into the floor mortar at all. You can simply install your wallboard above the mortar bed if you elect to install the mortar bed first (I don't) or you can build your mortar bed against the wallboard if you install the wallboard first. In any event, you really don't want to "jam up the foam board" against anything. I don't know how Laticrete recommends treating the joints in their foam board, but I doubt they recommend jambing them together, either. Touching? Maybe. Jambing? Don't think so.

Installing glass surrounds when using foam wallboards is something I've had questions about from their introductions. Screwing something tight against them into the wood framing seems a little problematic to me, but it's apparently done all the time (I've not built a foam board shower). I would be even more concerned if my foam board had been "wet shimmed" out from the framing. Perhaps one of our foam board users will give you better insight on that. It's commonly accepted that on vertical surfaces you can fill the fastener holes with a silicone sealant (or similar) before installing the mechanical fasteners and still maintain adequate waterproofing.

As for the glass on the curb, you don't indicate how you plan to construct your curb, but you do not want any mechanical fasteners to penetrate the waterproof layer on the top of the curb. There are other ways to install such brackets if you use them (I prefer to simply bed the glass panels in a grout joint in the curb and avoid fasteners).

Be sure the waterproof layer on top of your curb is sloped to drain.

[Edit] Looks like Kevin is faster this evening. Glad I didn't disagree with him.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[jokertoker]

Yeah I will fix up the studs instead of wet shimming them. And what I mean by jamming them is having them touch. But it does sound better to put the foam board down to the subfloor and then mud up the board. I didn't know that could be done, but I think I will do that.

And for my shower curb I was wanting to use 2x4s (or maybe 2x3's) with foam board or fabric membrane over it. Then I was thinking of maybe using some block instead of the wood. But after thinking about how to fasten the hardware into the curb, I came up with this drawing, and wonder what you guys think of it?



So if I put the fabric membrane over the bottom 2x4, then thinset a block on top of it (cut it down to size of 2x4), then put the fabric membrane over the back half of the block and down the back side. So this way, water can get down the screw hole, but the fabric membrane keeps it contained and the only way water can escape is to fall back down the membrane to the inside of the pan. Would a method like this work?

I'm totally up for ideas on this, but my ideal situation would be to us good long screws to anchor in the door hardware. But I agree I do not want to penetrate the waterproofing membrane. I also feel like you that the walls aren't as important as making sure the shower curb stays 100% water tight.


Thx for the replies.

[cx]

JW, the waterproof membrane on the top of the curb must slope to drain, and this is actually the portion you want to be at least two inches above your drain, although the code, for reasons unknown to me, say it's the finished curb that must be two inches above the drain. I'm sure that makes sense to someone.

That said, I'll say again that you do not want to penetrate the waterproof membrane on top of, or the inside face of your curb. Period. There is no reason to do so. There are other methods of attaching the door hardware to the curb if necessary, including silicone, epoxy, or and one of those in combination with truncated mechanical fasteners that do not go below the bottom of you tile. You are free, of course, to do whatever you like.

Keep in mind that no manufacturer of direct bonded waterproofing membranes (ANIS A118.10) sanctions installing their product over dimension wood as you are planning. The wood curb must first be clad in CBU or in limited cases, drywall. And, again, with the top sloped to drain.

You can, and many folks do, make your curb of CMUs and cover that with the waterproof membrane. I would still recommend against penetrating the waterproof membrane, but they may cause less damage, at least in the shorter term.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[jokertoker]

Yes I was planning on having a slight slope on the curb back to the drain. And I 100% agree that I do not want to penetrate the waterproofing membrane. But did you look at the drawing?



1st ?.....I was wondering if that sounds feasible for the curb? So I would put my 2x4 (I won't use wood when I actually do it, either block or cbu, but just for this example i'll keep saying wood as its in my drawing) down, and then put my fabric membrane over all of it. Then put thinset on the top of the membrane wood block, and attach a block to that. Then I'll take a piece of fabric membrane and put it over the back 1/2 of the block(when looking at it from 'overview') and down the back side of the curb. Then tile over it all. So this way when I put my screw anchor in, which would be in the middle of the curb and just miss the fabric membrane on the top back half of the block. So water will go through the screw hole into the block, but make it down to the fabric membrane on top of the 2x4 and then only can make its way out by exiting to the drain side of the curb. I would have the 2x4 sloped back to the drain with the fabric on top, for the water to drain. I know this might be kinda hard to understand as it hard to really explain it out properly. But the only reason why I'm coming up with this way was only so I could put some good anchors in to hold the door in place without penetrating the fabric membrane. I'd rather not use the plastic anchoring if possible, but may not have no choice.

I didn't think about using epoxy but I'm sure epoxy and those plastic anchors would be sufficient enough. The shower is for my mom who is getting on up there and I'm just don't want a scenario where she falls into the door and it fall over and shatter with her. Maybe I'm just over thinking it, lol.

I've even thought about going with a thicker piece of tile just for the top of the curb, so I could have more meat for those anchors.

2nd ?.....Do you think screwing into the foam board on the walls would be a problem? I could cut a 4 or 6 inch wide strip of cbu and put it vertically on the wall just where the wall brackets go so I can screw into that without having to go in the foam board. And have foam board on both sides. But the u channel would act like one giant washer, so maybe it could be ok.

3rd ?.....what do you typical do for the walls, as you said you haven't done the foam board walls?

Thanks for all the help yall.

[cx]

I did, indeed, look at your drawing, JW, which is why I pointed out that you cannot bond a direct bonded waterproof membrane directly to the wood curb.

Again, you're free to do anything you want in your shower construction, but I really think you're trying to re-invent a wheel that has worked quite well for many decades.

If you put that channel (I eliminate that sort of hardware and set my fixed glass directly into the tile on top of the curb to eliminate any fasteners at all) into the tile layer before installing the tile and have a more solid installation than installing it on top of the tile with mechanical fasteners.

As for the door, it will either be attached to the wall or to the fixed glass panel and there's not much you can do to make that any stronger. Install sufficient handrails in the shower so you don't need to worry as much about Mom falling.

I don't know how folks are fastening door hardware over foam backed tile installations. I suspect they just screw through the tile and foam into the framing as they would through CBU or mortar walls. If it's a serious problem, I don't think we've heard about it here on these forums as yet.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[jokertoker]

I feel much better about mechanically securing the hardware over just epoxy. But actually making a channel for it in the tile seems like the best way to go. I'll probably just do that and forget the screws in the curb. And yes I was already planning on a handrail in there but having the door secured is a priority no matter what. I'm just really opposed to those plastic anchors as in my line of work we use 1/2"+ metal drop in anchors into concrete and they still pull out. But I think I got it figured out now. Thanks

[Snets]

I have used epoxy to secure the bottom clip of a fixed panel to the tile. I drilled a hole not quite through the tile (probably like 1/4") and cut down the glass clip screw to be right at the bottom of the hole I drilled. Filled the hole with epoxy and dropped the clip with screw inserted into the hole and allowed to set a day or so.

This fixed panel has been installed for over 14 years and my 30" X 3/8" glass shower door hinges off of this panel. Never had a problem. Door has probably 15-20K open and close cycles.

I found an off-the-shelf epoxy that specifically mentioned tile and metal.

[jokertoker]

Thanks for the replies. I think it will be easier for me to epoxy/anchor just into the tile on the shower curb. Now I got to find an epoxy for it.

I also went to the store, 1 hr away, and they had most of the hydro ban stuff except for the foam membrane, which threw a wrench into my plans. So I got the roll of the fabric membrane and just gonna use the cbu on the walls instead. I guess my question is still about how to put the cbu in with the mud pan. Is it good enough to put the cbu on the walls down to the subfloor and then mud the pan up the cbu? If I put the fabric membrane every where in the shower, it shouldn't matter if I put the cbu down into the mud bed or have it sitting on top of the mud bed. Or does it matter?

[cx]

It does not.

[Kman]

If you just have the bottom plate 2x4, and your mud floor is taller than that, you will have to have some blocking to keep the mud from falling into the wall cavity.

Trust me, it's easier to just get your CBU about an inch of the floor, then it's held tight to the studs by the mud, and it keeps the mud out of the wall cavity. You kill two birds with one stone.

[jokertoker]

So would putting thinset over the cbu and then putting the fabric membrane over them be good enough? I got the 30' roll which is way more than I need, so I skipped the 5'' strips, since I should be able to cut my own out. So I would overlap the corners and everything like you're supposed to. Seems like the hardest part about that is making sure all the air bubbles is out.

[Kman]

Yes you can cut strips of membrane to cover any seams.

I use a couple of 8" sheetrock knives to smooth out the membrane and embed it into the mortar. I ground the corners off the knives since the tend to be a little pointed and sharp.

When putting membrane into the corners, I set it in by hand first and adjust it to generally where I want it. Then I run the edge of a knife down the corner to avoid the membrane from "rounding out". You want that membrane well into that corner so that it's embedded on both sides.

[jokertoker]

1) Is there much of a difference between hardie backer board and durock for walls for tile? They priced about the same, but is one better than the other? Also, for the walls, does it need to be 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch? I was planning on going 1/2 inch as my sheet rock is 1/2.

2) I already got the tile and its hexagon shapes about 2 or so inches, with a group of them already attached by mesh. Now that I've been thinking about it, are these type of tiles harder to set on the wall? Seems like i'll need a lot of those spacers to use on these compared to if it were just a square/rectangle tile.

3) What are some good spacers to use for tile? I know the pros have their favorites, or are those basic ones from home depot and lowes good enough?