Advice on shower curb

[shimkc]

I am a newbie here and I am currently working on remodeling my shower area. It currently has a tile redi pan 48"x34" with a curb on the 34" side. We realized after that pan in installed that 32" (34" -2" for our frameless door) seems a little small. We will like to extend the 32" length out to 38".

1. Either we will have a wide 10" curb and door not centered). A little wide gap in my opinion.

2. Cut the curb part of the tile redi pan and move the curb out by 6" and filling the middle with mortar and sloping it.

Does anyone else have any suggestion or advice. Thank you in advance

[cx]

Welcome, Shim.

My first suggestion would be to get rid of that TileRedi pan if it's not the right size for your intended shower.

A photo of the area in question might help, but a 32" opening for a shower door is huge to my thinking. What am I missing here?

My opinion; worth price charged.

[shimkc]

I apologize if I am confusing. The 32" is the width of the shower so basically if I am standing in the shower, it is my shoulder to shoulder width direction.

[cx]

That's what I was missing.

I much more strongly recommend you abandon that pre-fab shower receptor and build one that fits your intended shower footprint.

You can either build a traditional shower pan (see the Shower Construction thread in our Liberry or use one of the direct bonded waterproofing methods.

Trying to modify that receptor is just not worth the effort to my thinking.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[shimkc]

I am a little relucntant to remove the entire pan as I don't really want to waste the pan. So I am thinking of ideas to use the pan. Everything is in place and works, except for the small width.

[cx]

That's a pretty big "except," Shim.

I know those receptors are grossly expensive, which is why we generally encourage our visitors to make their own shower pans. Up to you whether it's worth tossing it in favor of building the shower you want.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[HooKooDoo Ku]

OMG! I just saw the price on those things @ tileredi.com

But Shim, you need to look at this as a business decision. The money is spent, there's no way to undo that. So you need to forget about the money spent in the past and figure out what is your best choise going forward from here.

For starters, it doesn't make much sense to me to spend $$$ on a shower pan, then attempt to use it in a wrong way. That just sounds like you're setting yourself up for a $$$$ fix in the future. And as a DIYer myself, I HATE working on something, only to have to undo/redo it again.

So if were me, I would be trying to decide which of the two following courses of action are best all FUTURE things considered:

1. Use the Redi Base and get the job done quicker and easier (but I wind up with a shower smaller than I want).

2. Spend the time (because it sounds like not much money involved) to install a traditional pan and get the size shower I want.


Now one thing that does come to mind that would make option #1 more paletable would be to possibly rethink the orientation of your shower. For example, rather than planning on turning your side to the door, plan on turning your back to the door. Get one of those shower heads on long arms that are designed to direct the water DOWN rather than at an angle. Then it doesn't matter which way you are facing relative to the shower head. Then again, a long arm isn't REQUIRED... nothing says you MUST mount a shower head on the wall (consider mounting it on the ceiling). Of course that has its consequenses too (such as more time between adjusting the temperature a feeling the result).

You can also still use the Redi Base and NOT have the door centered. Place the door at the far edge if water isn't going to easily splash up under the door. You won't gain much (perhaps an inch). But that's still more space with very little effort if your door can be set up so that it looks like it was ment to align with the outside edge of the curb.

[shimkc]

I am actually considering locating the door towards the outer edge of the curb. Most of the images I have seen have it centered but I guess that is just for cosmetic effect.

1. So there is no structural issue oif the door to 1" away from the outer edge of the curb?

2. For those with wide curbs (8" or more), is it a hazard to have that wide of a curb? We are fine with that but didn't want to have issues if we sell the house later.

Thanks in advance

[Houston Remodeler]

1- You'll need to consider the door hardware as that has thickness and the screws need to be set into solid wood.

2- These days we are making our curbs narrower and narrower. We use 2" wide kerdi board then tile that.