Shower liners hold back the water that can wreck your house.
Every piece of a tile shower base is there to put the liner and drain in the right spot.
Here are some of the crucial steps to get a waterproof shower that will work for years.
1.
Brace sub-floor.
From the ground up, so to speak, the shower base must be stable.
Otherwise moving will surely cause tile cracks to develop and that begins the end of a waterproof floor.
Do not overlook the simple, basic step of bracing and constructing a stable platform for the shower pan to set on.
2.
Use multi-layer drain.
Tile shower drains contain drain holes on two levels.
One you see in the floor.
The other layer lies buried within the mortar floor.
That layer exists to catch water that leaks through the floor.
Did you know that shower floors just naturally leak? They do...
Neither grout nor tile itself stops all the water.
Some water seeps into the base.
That's the water that must be caught and sent to the lower drain.
3.
Slope base mortar layer.
Over the base floor starts the building up of a pan layer by layer.
A mud layer starts off the build-up.
Often installers skip the first mud layer and just go right to the next layer -- large mistake.
Sloping a base layer helps move water right down toward the drain instead of leaving the water to pool in spots within the base mortar.
Pooled water within the base sits there and turns to a moldy mess.
So, slope a layer to start the mortar work.
4.
Liner membrane carefully sealed in place.
Above the sloped mortar base lies a waterproof liner membrane.
Usually that layer consists of a special vinyl sheet that's there to catch water and send it right to the drain.
This simple layer, buried in the floor, holds back the water that otherwise will drift down and around and slowly wreck your house.
Get it in and get it carefully sealed to the drain and it forms a waterproof pool that keeps every drop of water above it and routed right to the drain as it must be.
5.
Keep drain holes open.
One mystery of shower construction is how you can bury a drain and still catch water.
Wouldn't mortar poured over a drain stop up the drain? Normally, yes.
In this case though, a few broken pieces of tile or a little bit of pea gravel goes in and around the drain holes.
Those pieces keep the masonry out of the holes and open to catch the liner caught water.
6.
Careful curb construction counts.
An integral part of a pan is the curb.
Often failure happens there too.
It need not be, since building a curb that stays in place is simply done.
Stacking solid pieces of lumber works as a curb core.
Laying brick for a core works too.
Trying to use framed, hollow construction often doesn't.
Get the curb done right to maintain the seal at that critical spot.
Shower liners hold water in where it belongs.
Building a shower pan goes step-by-step and layer-by-layer.
Get the layers right and the water stays where it should for years.