New World Datsuns...

Since I bought this house, the down stairs shower leaked under the house. It's a custom shower.. very small. But it does the job.. kinda.

Anyway, the bottom of the shower has a cement shower pan. Not sure of the technical term for it. Thats where it was leaking. I called a plumber buddy and he came and looked. He confirmed it was the base and the only option was a lot of silicone or a complete gut.

I got an itch 2 yesterday.

I'm no expert in custom showers, but I've done a bunch of research since I will be rebuilding soon.

I got it down to this point.. and then I started seeing some issues with the design. First, the nails securing the plastic liner are way too low. There should be no nails below 6"

Fail:

Also, the liner should not be cut at the threashold. If it is cut, there should be another section glued to complete the transition.

Fail #2

Also, I am pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) the floor tile should go down first and the wall tile goes on second. This makes it so that water running down the walls does not leak under the floor tile but rather lay on top of the floor tile and slope towards the drain.

Fail #3

(Notice the trough next to the wall.)

I removed all the tile from the shower pan, and everything looked very solid. Looked like concrete. I started chipping away at it looking for more clues.

Fail #4.

Around the drain you are suppose to put loose gravel and cement over it. That way, if the drain leaks.. or water seeps down, it will drain out through the weep holes in the side of the drain. It was all filled with concrete.

Fail #5:

When building a custom shower pan, you should do two things.. make sure the floor is strong and will not flex by installing plywood. (Our floors are particle board)

Fail #6:

When building a custom shower pan, you should pour a base and slope it. Install the shower pan liner, then pour more concrete and set your final slope.

After removing all the concrete, this appears to be where the washer and drier were at one point. Then they were moved out to the garage and a shower was added.

Next steps:

- Need to research how thick the shower pan needs to be poured. Both lower and upper part.
- Remove particle board subfloor and install 3/4 plywood.
- Reframe shower pan area
- Install new drain
- Raise shower head about 1 foot

I probably would have ground out the old grout and re-grouted it instead of tearing it out, but that is me.

Yeah, but the whole thing was done wrong. I could tell when I started the demo. It's more work.. but I'll know it was done right.

It's called a mud bed. Yes the floor is usually installed first but with water going everywhere if there's a leak it would've found it's way out.

If you plan on staying in this house for a long time I would suggest looking into a Wedi or Schlueter system. They can be pricey but installation and maintenance are a breeze. They also are a lot lighter weight (essentially foam with a bonding board attached) but the cost might not be worth it if you plan to move in the near future.

Let me know if there is anything I can help you with and I will do my best to answer any questions you have.

I'll look into it. Thanks!

Finally got a bit more motivation to work on this. It's been a while..

I got under the house and set the new drain. Put down tar paper slope guides (optional) and wire mesh. Then installed the pre-slope.

Next will be to install the shower pan liner and then figure out how I want to do the curb.

^^^Where has this guy been?^^^

Taking a bit of a break from car stuff. But I'm back at it.. slowly.

Had an issue with my downspouts overflowing when we would get a heavy rain. Looks like the drainage pipe was plugged somewhere between the house and curb. I noticed the downspout closes to the curb was overflowing.. so I started digging there.

In this spot, the pipe actually runs up hill. Also the pipe was cracked all to shit, most likely it happened when comcast trenched a new line to the box. Dicks.

Anyway, I replaced a portion of the pipe. You can see how much shit was in the pipe.. and that was after I flushed it out.

So.. I've been working on my shower for months now.. still not done. It's all good.. cause the shower hasn't worked for about 3 years. Hopefully soon..

I installed the pan liner installed about 5 months ago.. I figured I should probably get to installing some cement board.