So time has come to remodel/update a small bathroom.

Going to remove the current tub unit and go to a walk in 60x30 shower.
Plan is to do tile from floor to ceiling with a inset shelf.
Planning on tile on the shower floor, not a fan of the looks of a shower pan.

This brings the first set of questions. Shower curb, what is the best way to address this. I have seen some kits with a snap together over 2x wood. You then trough mortar into the pieces/form.
Othere were using bricks set in with mortar, then covered with mortar.

I see the kits with the waterproof pvc liner with wood for the curb. Then you make the base and curb with mortar.

Anyone care to make suggestions for the curb/floor install.

The long wall will have a shelf set into the wall with accent tile in the back.
Shower tub faucet will be either a wall unit with multiple jets , shower head and handheld unit.
But may also just do a rain shower and hand held unit as well.

Toilet will be a chair height Champion 4 from lowes.

I did one years ago when I remodeled my bathroom.  I did the rubber bladder over a concrete base, concrete on top then tile.  I used PT 2X4’s for the outside edge.
One tip I can give from my mistake; Studs above the rubber bladder. I didn’t fur out the wall studs above it and when concrete board was screwed down they were not flat.  Bottoms of the walls curved inward slightly.

Pro tip for shower width

Stand in your shower space facing the shower head. Raise your hands up like you're going to cover your chest with the palms of your hands. Your elbows should be extending out perpendicular to your body. I'll bet the width for you is more than 30".

Is your inset going to be under the shower head or on the long wall. More convenient on the long wall.

If you go wider you'll be able to make a seat out of the back corner. Ladies like it for getting a leg up for shaving and it lends itself to shower sex.

The exit curb or threshold on mine was made from a big chunk of custom marble set on a 4x1

Schluter Systems

I can’t recommend Schluter products enough. A little expensive, but they are so easy to work with. The curb in my bathroom is their premade foam. Yes, you can stand on it. It’s good for 80psi. We also have a freestanding tub installed on one of the sloped Kerdi bases.

Inset will be on the long wall.

Thought about the seat/bench for the wife, she suggested a small removable seat

We were thinking of basically  glass wall on the curb/entrance.
Like this example, shower valve would be on right side.

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Have not given much thought to a half wall with glass from there up.

Like this example, basically same layout as you enter bathroom. Right side inside door, vanity, toilet then shower.

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Or

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Mine is like the one in the last photo except the wall is up about 4.5 feet tall and the entrance is the opposite end of the shower head. Don't have any glass.

Another thing with the tile ......... compare the cost of using 12x12 vs 4x6.  Putting up 12x12 will be much faster and a lot less grout. Also, use rounded tile for edges. Sharp edges in a shower are intimidating. Installers will usually just butt the pieces together if you don't tell them to use rounded tile.

Will be doing this myself.

Wife selected the wave tile for the walls. The gray hexagon for the shower floor and wall inset.

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The wave tiles are 12x24.

My reno was almost 20 years ago and things have evolved, Schluter Kerdi is a real force in this market now.

I went old school mortar & mud bed over a Composeal liner and the curb is stacked SYP 2x4's with a foam composite cover. The curb gets set with thinset and it is plenty strong.

I notched the bottom 4" to 6" of the wall studs to allow the excess pan liner to tuck neatly into the corners without pushing the backer board away from the studs near the pan. Composeal also makes corner pieces.

The big issue with mud bed pan construction is that it is never done correctly by builders because you have both plumbers and tile contractors involved. The mud bed goes down first the liner second and then another mud bed which receives the tile. You leak test the pan liner before the final mud bed is laid.

I placed pea gravel around the drain weep holes as called for, again I doubt this is done very often. I used a WP product from Bonsal on the backer board, I think RedGard is popular now.

Years later the shower is still in perfect shape without a single leak, cracked tile or failed grout joint. Remember you don't grout joints that are on different planes instead you caulk them.

Another tip is to add blocking between the studs for the glass doors (hinges in my case) and future grab bars or perhaps even towel hooks.

For the curb/ flor schluter kerdi is hard to mess up especially for a newbie, the foam pan gives the right slope, the kerdi waterproof system is good although it’s a little thick so it gets built out in the corners where it overlaps a few times. Before setting the foam pan, I always recommend using self level concrete poured Into the shower area to have a dead smooth and level Surface so your foam pan gets installed level and drains properly.

There are other ways too, using a liquid membrane (red guard, Aqua defense, hydroban etc) is a good way if done properly. There is a variety of ways to use these products too, either fully painted on everything much like a kerdi sheet membrane would be, you need to used the proper style “flanged” drain for this( look at the schluter drain for what I mean by flanged drain vs a traditional shower drain. You would build your mud bed sloped to the drain and waterproof the surface you need to use reinforcement mesh over all the seams and corners to make sure you have a thick enough coating and it wont crack in the corners. This type the mud bed stays dry same as with a schluter kerdi system

Or you can use a traditional shower drain and pre slope, vinyl pan and then final mud bed and use the red guard on the walls only. This type of shower water flows through the mud bed to the vinyl pan and down into the weep holes around the drain. It’s never done properly because people dont bother to do the pre slope to guide the water to the drain once it’s hits the vinyl pan, without pre slope it holds water and will mold.

We typically build our curbs out of pressure treated 2x4, cover it in your backer of choice - we use denshield lately it’s like Sheetrock so easy to cut but has a waterproof coating but also like fiberrock. Schluter Kerdi foam panels can be nice too but expensive.

This is what a proper shower waterproof job looks
Like. We waterproof over the already “waterproof” backer boards.


Here is the mesh over all the seams and corners to keep it water tight and not cracking in the corners.

For your valve and trim I recommend the delta with the built in diverter if your looking at multiple shower heads or handhelds etc. this valve will give you many options  for multiple heads, handhelds, sprayers etc. trim kits can get pricey depending on what you like.

Amazon - delta rough in valve

You can do it other ways with seperate mixing valves, and diverter valves, just depends on what you like or if you want to relocate parts of the system so have your on off by the entry to turn on and run the water without getting wet with the shower head on the opposite side. You can get complex with the plumbing but you need to make sure you have the volume and pressure if your wanting body sprayers and big rain heads etc.

With your tile choice I’d recommend keeping it simple with no pony wall, probably no bench either. The wavy texture is a pain when your wrapping cuts around walls and corners. And the edges will have some lips where it will transition say into the niche because the tile is not flat and smooth. For the top Of the curb I’d Recommend a slab or threshold type Piece you wouldn’t want that wavy stuff on the top Of your curb to hold water. Same with the bottom of the niche smooth surface to not hold water amd Be flat for the shampoo bottles.
Engineered stone curb top -Floor and decor

Here’s some photos of similar tile to show you the lippage I’m talking about.




You also need to think about your edge profile, raw Tile edge is ugly, schluter trim metals look nice and clean, bull nose 1/4 round and chair rail pieces can look very nice to finish off the edges too

What shower wall unit is that?

No idea on the brand, probably something off wayfair bought by the home owner. This was years ago when I tiled that shower now. I can tell you the parts and valves were not super high quality, but it would be easy to repair being hung on the wall and all the plumbing besides the hot/cold supply lines is all external from the wall.

Looked at the Schluter system, very interesting.   I like that it more or less takes the guess work out of the slope to drain and makes it uniform.
It is a bit pricey as mentioned, but can speed up the process.

Has anyone used their shower floor and curb kit for the floor, and then hardie board/durorock on the walls?
I do like their one kit with the linear drain. Local lowes stocks a good amount of their product, but not the linear drains.
The local Home depot carries and stocks their stuff as well. Will stop there afterwork to check what they have in stock as well.

Anyone use their heated floor set up? Wife and I have discussed that option as well. Currently there is a short electric baseboard heater in the bathroom. We have never had to turn the heat on in there. It is tied into the next bedrooms electrical supply. No idea how or why, that's how the builder did it.
In the summer I turn the heat off at the circuit breaker. In the winter months it stays warm since it has no walls to the exterior.

You enter from the hallway, and the shower is across the back. Behind the shower is 2 closets for the rooms on each side of the bathroom,Then the exterior wall.

I’ve not used the ditra heat, but I’ve used ditra and electric heat mats under the tile separately, can’t recall a brand but the heated floor is nice under bare foot. Imo I don’t think they will last long term but I truly don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s also good idea to run 2 thermostat wires under the tile though, if one ever failed you have a back up to wire in.

I’m not a fan of the foam pan/curb but they do work well. Liner drain is nice, imo if you go linear drain it’s not hard to do a flat slope to a linear drain so you can save money using deck mud for the pan And build the curb from concrete block or a couple 2x4 covered in backer board, You can still kerdi over top of a mud shower pan And any tile backer walls, you can use technically use kerdi right over sheetrock but I don’t recommend it

Can you put Kerdi over 5/8 inch or 3/4 inch (both nominal) exterior glue plywood used as wall sheath?  I ask this because I want to be able to install stainless steel tubular safety handles, and I think the plywood will hold screws better than any of the alternatives.  

The wild card factor is that our house is built of load bearing concrete slump block.  The interior "studs" are just 2 by 2 nominal size furring strips fastened to the concrete blocks.  Two of the shower's walls are on the furred block walls.  There is 1-1/2 inches of fiberglass insulation between the furring strips.  The shower presently uses Swan ABS shower walls over a much older Swan shower tray (About 30 by 60 inches) that is cracking.  The shower walls are glued to drywall.  Removing the shower walls will remove the drywall.  I plan to refit the 2 by 2 furring strips with 2 by 3s on their wide side, glued to the concrete blocks with Simpson Epoxy.  Then I'll fill the void space with spray in foam.

Another possibility is to use 1-1/2 inch plywood glued to the concrete block as both the substrate and the anchor for the safety bar screws.  The concrete block has been insulated with blown-in foam.

Shelves or niches won't be deep on the long side and the back end, but can be deeper on the plumbing end because that's a 2 by 4 framed partition wall.  The shelves can be tiled to hang into the shower a little bit.  

If need be, I can fur out the block walls with 2 by 4 or 2 by 4 lumber on edge, but the available shower width space is tight to begin with.  But my main question remains:  Is it OK to attach Kerdi membrane to exterior glue plywood?

I'm all about the party shower

Not sure on using kerdi over wood vs backer. But you can just add wood blocking between the 2x2 furring strips anchored to the block wall where you want your grab bars to go.

No need for cement board as regular drywall works just fine for the kerdi membrane.  If you want a lot of info head over to the johnbridge forum, it's the arfcom of tile.

I did a walk in shower with a curb.  Tile seller guy told me to buy some 1/2 thickness firebricks and mortar them in.  Worked great.  


I am not a fan of the Kerdi things.  They are overly expensive and unnecessary.  The orange Kerdi tile membrane was installed by professionals at my work, under marble tiles. This was properly installed over a concrete base.   Within a month, tiles started breaking.  I saw them back on site replacing tiles.  Within another month, our maintenance guys had marked every cracked tile with a sharpie marker.  Installer returned and replaced a lot of broken tiles.  

And then......they cracked again, and remain cracked to this day.  I would bet if they had just used leveler and mortar without the membrane, none of the tiles would have cracked.  

I AM a fan of RedGard and have used it on showers and floors.  I highly recommend it. It is used for a slipsheet or a waterproof membrane.



This shower is 100% RedGard lined.  I cut, profiled, and set these tiles myself.  There are 120 sweated copper joints in the plumbing system and I didn't have a single leak.  (leak test before backer board install)

I eat at Subway and stay at Holiday Inn.

At this point I think best to go with time proven mortar bed and skip the kirdi stuff.

As nice as it sounds, I have been thinking if how it would flex with the small tiles on the floor.

Anyone have a shower panel they can recommend? Something with a few massage jets, a rainfall over head and handheld?

For example, not this unit but you get the idea.
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