Fitting shower base

Simon

Simon

Simon

Caporegime
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Hi,

Bought a house last year in need of decorating and been busy decorating the rooms including learning how to plaster and fitting new rads etc, so not scared of plumbing. My next project is in the bathroom which involves moving everything into a better place (cast iron bath is currently in the middle of the room) and installing a shower.

A mate of my dad's is coming next week to help and everything should be ok, i just have a small question about the shower base fitting.

This is the shower base and it will be placed into the corner once the toilet is moved. The problem is the skirting
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Once I remove the skirting I plan to fit the base under the floor at the edges slightly and then tank the shower with a maepai tanking kit. The iussue I for see is the gap between the bottom of the wall and the top of the base. Any ideas on how to fill this? The wall is L+P

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This is the underside of the base, it didnt come with feet and was planning to mortar it into position onto 18mm Marine ply (replacing the floorboards). One option could be to raise the base I guess?

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Many thanks in advance
Simon
 
If I get this right, when you remove the skirting there is no L&P behind so when you slot the tray in there will be a 2"ish gap between the top of the tray and the bottom of the L&P and you want to know how to fill this?

If so I filled a lot of missing plaster with tile adhesive you spread a few days before, it sets like rock.

Do you have the falls to accommodate having no feet? I assume yes because the toilet is there.
 
Exactly that thanks - was hoping for a reply from you.

Shower drain will be about 800mm from soil stack so should be fine for drop. Ill get the boards off tomorrow and start building up the adhesive layers in advance.

Thanks.
 
If you're tiling there's no need or a great finish so you can which I did just spread a bucket of cheap adhesive in.

Obviously my recommendation would be for a waterproof powder adhesive but I had 1/2 bucket of standard cheapo adhesive left over for the same and it's been fine.

Are you planning to fit your tray in to the recess, I did this for my bath then mastic the joint and the contact areas then fill the recess, mastic again then tile with a waterproof adhesive and mastic the final joint.

Provides for a more robust detail and stops the tray flexing breaking any seal. It's the way baths used to be set into the walls before plastering.
 
Yeah will be recessing slightly to help make tanking it easier. I will be tiling with 600x300 tiles. Any recommendations on adhesive. I usually go for branded stuff on things like adhesives, pastes etc
 
Bal White Star, pre mixed.

Highly flexible and waterproof and in shower cubicles it want's to be. I have a house where cheap adhesive was used for tiles and the bottom row all came loose.
 
I'd go for a BAL flexible waterproof extended use bagged powder adhesive.

Ready mix is only really suitable for small ceramic tiles anything bigger than 300 x 300 or anything not ceramic need an adhesive that sets through a chemical reaction not evaporation.
 
Oh sorry missed the 600mm, yeah powder mix then :)
The bigger the tile the better, less grout lines to keep clean ;)

Sadly didn't have the choice in my house and they put in those large tiles but with extra grout lines in the tiles. As soon as I have spare cash my en-suite is getting gutted!
 
Cool thanks. The tiles are 8mm thick and weigh 3.8kg each so 5.55x is 21kg/m^2.

Will this be ok for the BAL flexible adhesive? Will be bonding direct to the tanking in the shower but in the rest of the room it will be half height on L&P which has had the paint scraped off.
 
I stuck 300 x 300 12mm porcelain floor tiles to my walls with it and it's been fine.

If you phoned BAL they probably would recommend sticking and screwing a hardibacker board to the walls first.
 
I'd get a sheet of hardibacker board and rip it down and screw it to the studs. They are a few quid from tile shops and small enough to fit in your car.
 
There is 25mm of plaster on wall. Could I just add a strip of 18mm ply im using on floor, leaving a gap for the tray to slide into. I would fill the 7mm depth difference with adhesive before taking and then tiling?

Just checked it and the stud you can see has a skirting spacer on

Adding the hardy would be ideal but there is a door on same wall so would have to do the whole wall really to avoid different heights.
 
Last edited:
Simon said:
Hmm big gaps to fill plus the studwork for the wall
Click to expand...
Cut and screw in a 10cm strip of cement board (waterproof).

Also, measure where the shower drain overhangs the plaster ceiling below.
Screw in some battening level with the ceiling plaster.
Cut out a 20cm square in the ceiling, replace with a square of plasterboard and screw this into the battening.


Then in the future if you have problems with the shower drain clogging, you can knock out that 20cm area and fix the problem without having to pull down a chuck of ceiling.
 
You can't predict what will get lost down there or what might go wrong, I've always provided easy access to any water or gas plumbing because if it leaks it will always need to be fixed immediately.
Just habit I guess (and having to fix other people's abortions)
 
Ok so I'm going to go for ADESILEX P10. Seems none of the 'sheds' stock it though including screwfix.

Keraquick or Keraflex looks my second option
 
OK so I've had a delay on this but should start today. It seems that tiling onto L+P is a bad idea and I should pull it down and completely board (maccapacca also is in this place I think).

So looks like a bigger job but one that is done right I guess

Thanks for the help - will let you know how it goes
 
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