Shower Pan Reuse

[mrs1118]

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).

[Lazarus]

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.....

[cx]

Welcome, Mike.

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.

My opinion; worth price charged.

[Elkski]

"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

[Davy]

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.

[mrs1118]

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.

[John Bridge]

Hi Mike,


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:

www.schluter.com

[Davy]

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.

[mrs1118]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'll go ahead and remove the floor and build it out from scratch as suggested.