Tim's master bath remodel

[twyoung]

Hello everyone! I am a long time viewer of this forum, but this is my first post. I used this site as resource to re-tile our entryway last year and now my wife thinks I can take on the master bath remodel. Of course, she wants everything from new floors (heated), new tub surround which will need an access panel since it did not have one before, and a new, bigger shower with a bench. I will call in a plumber for the shower and an electrician for the floors at some point, but I want to do most of tile work myself.

My first question is where do I start? I thought the tub surround seemed the easiest, but after demo, I realized that I probably need to have the floors down to tile the surround and I am going to probably need the new shower in place before I start the floor. I have attached a few pictures and any advice you have to get started would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Houston Remodeler]

Tim,

A remodel project such as your is best done in stages:

1- Demo
2- Framing
3- HVAC (least flexible in options)
4- Rough plumbing (second lest flexible in options, might wanna switch this to #3)
5- Rough electrical
6- Floor leveling (if applicable)
7- insulation
8- close the walls (finish drywall if you wish)
9- Tile waterproofing / prep work
10- Finish surfaces (we prefer to paint before tiling)
11- Cabinet installation
12- Finish plumbing
13- Finish electric
14- Admire your work

[twyoung]

Thanks for the reply, Paul. I was hoping that I could demo just one part at a time to prevent living in a total construction zone for a long time. I will take some more pics after demo is complete and I am sure I will have many more questions along the way. My wife and I will mostly be working on this some weeknights and most weekends. Let's hope it is done by Christmas! Looking forward to sharing our progress with all of you!

[Houston Remodeler]

Originally Posted by Tim

Let's hope it is done by Christmas!

Thanks Tim.

[WendyHMN]

I see in your floorplan that you have another bathroom right next door, same as we do in our house. The guest bath became THE full bath during the 18 months of construction on our master. And we didn't even have a tub or heated floors (though we did add a steam shower). Construction is hard enough without having to work around areas you want to leave intact temporarily. And if you both work full time and want to continue to have lives, don't even think about deadlines. Just work steadily and you'll get it done. A year later you'll barely remember the inconvenience. Been there, learned that.

[twyoung]

Thanks, Wendy! That is what we plan to do as well. We decided to work slowly and on one area at a time. Doing all the demo ahead of time means that we would have a lot of drafts and cold air coming in as winter approaches!

This weekend we are going to work on the garden tub surround. I will post pictures as soon as we come across any problems.

[twyoung]

We removed all the tile around the tub today. We now have a few questions before we can move on. I have attached pictures of the demo.

1. Should we remove the plywood that is on top of the OSB on the tub deck? You can see in 1 picture where we have already removed it from the front. If we don't remove it, the new tiles won't be able to slide a little bit under the tub flange. If we do remove it, what do we replace it with? or can we just put the deck tile on the OSB?

2. You can see that 1 wall is an interior wall and the other 2 are exterior walls. This tub does not have a shower, so how important is the moisture/vapor barrier? What do you suggest we use? We were planning on putting Cement board and then Redguard or something similar. Is that necessary?

3. There are holes in the plastic over the insulation that we made when removing the old tile (which was just mounted to drywall). Do we need to repair those? I have read a little about the "vapor sandwich" which we want to avoid.

4. Can we add insulation around the tub? It seems very drafty underneath and we can see a little bit into the crawl space where the pipes enter. I also thought it might keep the water in the tub warmer longer. If we can, what should we use?

Thanks so much everyone!

[Houston Remodeler]

Tim,

1- You can raise the tub OR leave the plywood and use greenskin (its very thin) to waterproof under the tub lip then tile and silicone the joint closed OR remove the plywood and fix the framing to allow thinner plywood

2- No need for a vapor barrier for the tub use, but important for your insulation envelope in this situation. Normally we waterproof the bottom foot of the tun surround only. Many pro's don't waterproof at all since there is so little water. CBU and RG are nice touches

3- Since your tiling such a small area - don't worry about the dreaded moisture sammich. Use Tyvek tape to fix the holes as in this case its an air barrier as well

4- regular un-faced batt insulation is good

[twyoung]

I'm back! Progress on the bathroom is slow because we brought in an electrician to check out the wiring for the tub and run a wire for the future heated floors. This was just taken care of today.

Now, we are starting to plan for the heated floors. Here is the plan with a few questions.

1) Remove all sheet vinyl-- There is a layer of plywood over the subfloor, you can see where the glue was applied, but it is not sticky at all. Do we need to remove the glue (not sure this is possible) or plywood? I am hoping not because I am pretty sure the plywood is in good shape otherwise and continues under the vanity which would be a pain to remove.

2) Install Warmwire and cover with a SLC. Allow to dry

3) Use modified mortar over SLC to install Ditra.

4) Use unmodified mortar over Ditra to install tile.


Do I really need the SLC to over the Warmwire and allow to dry or can I just use a modified mortar and put the Ditra directly over the warmwire without a separate SLC layer?

Also, you might be able to see the glue lines (looks like the glue was applied with a very narrow trowel) on the plywood in one of the pictures above. I can take a better picture of it, if needed.

Again, thanks for the help! I appreciate it.

[twyoung]

Since I did not get a response on my last post, I have been reading and reading and reading. Of course, that leads me to more questions.

My main question is about the SLC that a DIYer should probably use over the WarmWire rather than trying to trying to achieve a level and flat surface with mortar myself. From what I am have been reading a SLC will require a primer and some sort of mesh lath. How much will this lath add to the height of the floor?

All of this is making me wonder if I should skip the Ditra plan I described in my last post and just go with Hardibacker, warmwire, SLC (I don't think that the lath is required with SLC is over CBU (Hardibacker), thinset and tile. This should keep the floor height to a minimum.

What problems do you see with this plan vs. the Ditra for the floors?

[cx]

Welcome, Tim.

Sorry you were overlooked there. When that happens, just make another post to bump your thread to the top of the queue for attention.

1. Depends upon what kind of plywood you're dealing with. How thick is the plywood?

Next you need to know what's under it. And you need to know what's under that for a joist structure.

After you determine all that is suitable, you must remove either the glue or the layer of plywood before you try to bond anything to it.

2,3,4. Let's first do #1.

I think the Warmwire can be installed directly to a properly prepared wood subfloor. Your SLC manufacturer will tell you the requirements for installing his product over that. You would install Ditra with unmodified thinset mortar over the SLC.

You can use thinset mortar to cover the heating system if the manufacturer approves that. I don't know if your SLC requires lath when used over the Warmwire. That'll be product specific.

You can install CBU under the Warmwire if you want. That's certainly not a substitute for installing an uncoupling membrane over the heating system, though, but the membrane is not mandatory.

Your floor does not need to be level unless you just want it level. Tile don't give a rat's patooti about level, it wants only flat.

My opinion; worth price charged.