We have a shower that had some cracking in the grout along the walls and minor moisture behind. I ended up ripping down all of the walls back to the studs, but have not yet ripped up the shower pan.
The floor seems to be in decent shape, but the shower pan looks like it was put in after the walls were up and tiled (wall tiles went down to the subfloor) so there is a ~3/4" gap between the end of the shower pan and the wall studs/membrane.
I'm planning on using the Kerdi system everywhere. My question is should I demo the existing shower pan and build from scratch or whether it would be okay to keep the existing shower pan in place, pack the outside edge gap with drypack mortar and install a kerdi membrane on top of that with a drain extension? The shower is a custom configuration of 56"x63" with an offset drain and a diagonal entryway (3 feet wide).
Mike...."You pays your money and you takes your chances." It is possible that the pan is salvageable...but you really won't know till you get down to it. If there are no cracks or penetrations, you might be alright. Best recommendation is to gut it and start over.......
Take some photos and we can better direct you.....
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Laz...
“I came, I saw, she conquered."
The original Latin seems to have been garbled.”
I would not, under any circumstances, rebuild a tile shower re-using the old receptor. You, of course, may do as you like.
How old was the shower when you tore it out?
Do you know for certain that there is a pre-slope under the waterproof liner?
No, you can't do as you suggest. To effectively change to a Kerdi Shower System you must install the Kerdi drain, which will require that you remove the existing clamping drain. There is an adapter allowing you to install a bonding flange drain on top of your existing clamping drain, but I would not recommend that in your application, either.
If you want to change to a direct bonded waterproofing membrane shower system (Kerdi is one such), you want to start by removing everything you have down to your subfloor.
"so there is a ~3/4" gap between the end of the shower pan and the wall studs/membrane."
What membrane?
I'm not familiar with a Schluter drain that attaches to an existing drain. unless you have a clamping drain. then they have the drain A https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us...KERDI_DRAIN-AR
I had fear of making a mud pan but it was easy and fun... a bit of work mixing up batches in a big black cement mixer tray but it was easy to work with and dries rock hard. your going so far just make sure your drain is attached good
Like the others, I don't understand the 3/4 inch gap. The pan liner should turn up the walls behind the tile. Regardless, like Cx, if I'm going to tile a shower, I'm removing it all and starting from scratch.
Thanks for the feedback.
I cleaned things up a bit and took some pictures for reference.
When going back and looking closer, there's only a 1/2" gap between the floor and the studs, the wall board went down to the subfloor and was put up before the mortar bed was set.
I've been leaning towards ripping it all up and rebuilding the floor, but was told that it could be an option to simply lay it over the top of the existing. It didn't sound like a good option, but wanted to get some feedback just in case I was doing extra work that didn't need to be done.
To do a Kerdi shower you'll break the old floor out, remove the shower pan and change the drain to a Schluter Kerdi drain. Hundreds of Kerdi showers have been chronicled on these forums. There is lots of reading to do. Plus, there are tutorials on the Schluter site:
I count 10 or so nail holes in the top of the curb and there's probably more on the inside of the curb. Even if you were planning to go back with a traditional pan liner installation, I'd recommend you remove the floor.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I finally had some time to demo the floor and was surprised to see that there was no preslope under the original membrane. I've attached some pictures of what's left. I was also surprised by the 1/4 Fiberock underlayment that I dinged up when taking out the mud bed.
Should I remove that underlayment? I'm leaning towards a full mud bed, but am still considering a Kerdi shower pan with dry pack on the outside to fill the gaps on the uncommon size.
Another question is about the existing curb. Should I rip that out and use a Kerdi curb, or is the existing one okay with kerdi membrane over it?
What are your drain plans? If you're using Kerdi, I'd change the 3 pc clamping drain to a Kerdi drain. You might could get it centered a little better.
I see no use for the fiber board, I'd take it up. At least part of the Fiber board will need to come up anyway to replace the drain. Probably some of the plywood too. It's up to you on how you want to do the curb. I don't like foam, I'd mud it with the proper pitch and wrap it with Kerdi.
Perhaps you've already looked into a Kerdi shower pan and found that it will fit your current drain placement. Or perhaps you've already given yourself to moving the drain to fit said pan. Regardless, if you still need to mix and place mud to make up for the short comings of the Kerdi pan I'd opt to nix the Kerdi pan all together and do the whole thing with mud. Doing so means you don't have to move the drain if ya don't wanna, The pitch will be right, and the perimeter will be a consistent height, which means your wall tiles, all of them, will be a consistent height.
I'd opt, too, to remove the Fiberock. Hopefully is was not properly installed by being embedded in mortar.
Poke at those water damaged framing members, including the curb, with a screw driver or similar. If they feel solid, no worries. If they don't, replace. Remember that you will still need to clad the curb with drywall or tile backer board even when covering with Kerdi. Cannot adhere Kerdi directly to bare wood.
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Dan
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If I recall correctly my memory is excellent, but my ability to access it is intermittent.
Thanks guys! I'm planning on replacing the drain with a Kerdi drain, but wasn't planning on moving it. It would be better to be centered, but it doesn't bother me as is. Doing a mud bed makes sense, as you mentioned the tiles will all be at a consistent height. I'll remove that fiber board, I think it's only nailed down. I'll also check the wood framing and curb to see if any of it needs to be replaced. Slowly but surely I'll make progress on this shower. At this rate, I may be able to use it again in 2022... tough finding the time to actually work on it.
