Newb in MN about to start a master bath reno need some tips

[jwdominick]

So Bought a bank owned home the 1st week of April. The home was built in 2000 and had some pretty "era" specific porcelain tile though out. I've done plenty of tile jobs, mostly back splashes, floors and such, but this will only be my 2nd attempt at a shower.
I retiled the rest of the living space and now I am moving onto the big job, the master bathroom

I've gutted the tile and the entire shower as the liner or something must have leaked sometime prior and I didn't want to trust re-using it. I am now down to just the subfloor, framing around the shower and the drop in jacuzzi tub.

Its a corner shower and now that its down to just the the plywood subfloor. Can I simply add my cement board to the floors and walls, redgard over these per the manf. instructions to seal it, and then my thinset/mortar to apply my tile, while creating my slope with a slightly greater thickness of the thinset as I work out from the center?
I am not opposed to adding a traditional liner, but the added height or a full mortar bed is not something I want as the previous one I yanked out was a good 4"+ thick

I'm an engineer by trade, so I am more than confident in my thinking this through, just wanted some opinions from the pros.

Pics attached do not show the final clean up to the sub floor but they should give an idea of what I am working with.

-Jeremy

[Pete1972]

Originally Posted by jwdominick

Can I simply add my cement board to the floors and walls, redgard over these per the manf. instructions to seal it, and then my thinset/mortar to apply my tile, while creating my slope with a slightly greater thickness of the thinset as I work out from the center?

No.

Don't try to cut corners on that shower floor like that. Thinset is only designed to bond tile to a substrate, not create a think mud bed (which will be the case on the perimeter of the floor if sloped at 1/4" per foot). Hard to imagine that turning out nicely or holding up to any use over time. Your flat CBU/Redgaurd floor will also hold water since it's not pitched to the drain.

The Redguard over CBU shower is a fine idea, just do the correct pan design to go with it.

[jwdominick]

So ideally, i'd want a slight slope to the cement board as well to prevent "pooling" under the tile?

[Pete1972]

Not exactly. Ideally you want a shower pan constructed of mud with a minimum slope of 1/4" per foot from the furthest point in the shower to the center of the drain, properly waterproofed with either a liner or surface-applied membrane to prevent pooling under the tile. The mud pan can either be one consisting of a pre-slope, pan liner bonded to a clamping style drain with weep holes then a final mud layer, Or a solid mud bed sloped the same (without the liner) with a surface applied membrane like Redguard.

Think of it like this; your shower needs to be water tight and have all flat surfaces properly sloped towards the drain BEFORE you set the first tile. Tile, thinset and grout are not water proof so everything beneath the tile needs to be properly designed first.

Check out this shower construction link in the Liberry for more:

http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/...ead.php?t=5434

[jwdominick]

Gotcha, I think your option 2 is the plan, i'll read up on the link this evening
Thanks