Constructing a curbless shower questions

I have a old shower hob where the curbs are made of bricks.

the shower is too small, so i've decided to remove the curbs and make a curbless shower.

the shower floor already sloped, so I'm not gonna dig into concrete floor and build a sloped pan.

I'm just gonna remove the curbs and the floor tile, prime it, put waterproofing membrane and install new tiles.

i've figured all the parts out except that i have no idea how to remove the curb.

i've remove the tiling on the curb, but the curb looks to be made of bricks attached to concrete floor and glued together with mortar.

I've been working with chisel and hammer but removing the mortar was best i could do.

could you please suggest a method or a tool (non expensive preferred) I could use to remove the bricks and reach the concrete floor?

Thank you

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MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @ArashM. It's fantastic to have you join us and many thanks for your question.

I believe the bricks will be bedded on top of cement. You should be able to take a Craftright 1.35kg Club Hammer and knock them straight off. The rubber mallet is not very effective at this as it is absorbing most of your force. You need sharp impacts to the brick to fracture the cement bond with them, the steel club hammer is much more effective at this.

You'll most likely need a grinder for this job as it will come in handy for smoothing off any bricks or tiles you can't fully remove. Depending on the number of tiles you need to remove an Ozito 900W SDS+ 3J Rotary Hammer Drill Kit would also be helpful.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or had questions.

Mitchell

ArashM

Hi Mitchell,

Thank you for responding to my enquiry.

I was using the rubber mallet to minimise the noise for neighbours but I believe you are correct.

Thank you for your advice.

ArashM

Hi,

Is there a method/product I can use to raise the shower drain by about 1cm.

I'm planning to retile my bathroom/shower floor using tile over tile method. The grout plus tile thickness would require the drain to be raised by about 1cm or less.

I would also prefer to replace drain cover with a new one.

What products is best to use for this?

Thank you in advance

MitchellMc

Hi @ArashM,

I've enquired with a few of our plumbing experts instore to see if there is a product suitable for raising a shower drain. Unfortunately, the response I am receiving is that this is something a plumber would specialise in. They will either tell you that they need to cut the drain out and install a new one at the correct height or they might be willing to cobble an adaptor together. There is no product I can suggest that will simply adapt to the current drain and allow you to install a new one over the top.

Let me mention some of our keen D.I.Y. enthusiasts @TedBear, @Walzz, @Kermit and @Stuardo to see if they would like to join the conversation.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or had questions.

Mitchell

ArashM

Hi @MitchellMc

I followed your advice and bought a rotary hammer drill. Once i emptied 1cm around the curbs down to the cement attachment under the bricks, slight hammering of the cement with the hammer drill knocked the brick off clean and easy.

Thank you very much for your help.

Could you please advice what product I can use to fill the cutout left by the curb and bring the surface back to level. It needs to bond with the cement around it and its around 5-6cm deep.

There are too many variation out there I'm afraid, sand n cement mix, self leveling, repair mortar ...

I'm not sure of the differences but i would rather the most economical option please.

Thanks

MitchellMc

Hi @ArashM,

I would advise using Dunlop 20kg Construction Grout to fill this void.

At this stage, it would be my advice to remove all the floor tiles. You'd then use Lanko 20kg 133 Pro Level Floor Leveller over the whole floor. You can have a professional waterproof the slab or install a shower base. If you decide to not use a pre-cast base then you'll need to remove wall tiles as the waterproofing has to be across the floor and up the wall. This needs to be a continuous layer and you are not able to simply water-proof the floor alone.

Your original idea of tiling over the existing tiles might not be possible now that you have effected the water-proofing layer.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or have questions.

Mitchell

ArashM

Hi @MitchellMc ,

I totally agree with you. I have removed the tiles on the rest of the floor but left the slab untouched. In the shower area i have removed the entire slab along with waterproofing membrane embedded in it down to the same level as where curb was removed. I'm planning to remove one row of the wall tiles without breaking them, apply waterproofing using Crommelin Waterproofing kit on the entire bathroom floor plus the first row of wall around the shower area. Since the original waterproofing up the shower wall is intact, as long as I overlap the new waterproofing with the old one on the wall, this should be more than sufficient to create a continuous seal.

Then I pour in the levelling mix and create the sloped curbless pan towards the drain.

After that I'm planning on doing another layer of waterproofing on top of the pan and the rest of the floor just for extra measure. then i put thinset on floor and first row of the wall and tile it.

I also need to mention that my wall tiles are painted white and I'm planning to repaint the walls on shower area since the chipped tiles have damage the paint, so I'll be using waterproof paint for that as well.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks again for your help.

Jason

Hi @ArashM,

Just letting you know that Mitchell won't be back on the site until Friday, but I'm sure he'll be happy to confirm that you have the right approach or provide any further advice.

Let me also tag experienced bathroom renovators in @Former Workshop member and @JDE to see if they might kindly be able to share their thoughts with you.

Thanks,

Jason

ArashM

Hi @MitchellMc ,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Before putting my shower base down using sand and cement mix, i leveled the floor using leveling compound. I cut the drain pipe down by few centimetres chiseled around it and installed a puddle flange.

Puddle flange come with an adaptor which allows height adjustment and i will use that to raise my drain grate up to match the screed height after i out down the screed.

2 Layers of liquid waterproofing will be put under and above the screed

ArashM

Hi,

I have a shower floor of 125x80cm with a drain grate located off centre (see photo attached).

I'm planning to build a sloped screed to have a curbless shower. I have already lower the shower floor and leveled it.

I watched a Bunnings video shower base tile installation where they used large format tiles, layed it on the base and cut from corners of base to the drain to match the tiles with slope of the shower base.

I have encoustic 20x20 tiles and I have been told not to slope the pan by quarters and not to cut the tiles as the videos demonstration. Main reason being the cut tiles end up with sharp lips as opposed to the original manufactured sides where there is rounded lip. Having the sharp edges would not be pleasing under foot traffic.

Also, since my tiles are patterned, cutting as such would ruin the overall pattern.

I've had a look all over internet and i have only seen large format tile cut as such or small mosaic tiles used for shower floor.

Could you please advice of alternative sloping methods as apposed to the corner to centre quarter slopes i can use to build the shower base so that I would not have to cut tiles where foot traffic is.

Your help is greatly appreciated

images (8).jpeg

MitchellMc

Hi @ArashM,

With large format tiles, they are cut like this as there is no other way for them to follow the grade of the shower base into a central waste. This is why you see strip drains on the sides of recesses becoming common usage.

With smaller tiles and mosaics, this is not necessary as the thickness of tile glue allows them to be individually adjusted to suit the grade. The smaller the tile the easier it is to adjust them to the grade. This is why you have seen so many smaller tiles used on the base of showers.

In your case, you would lay a screed with as minimal a grade as possible. You would then adjust each individual tile to suit the grade.

Tiling a wall is quite easy but getting 200 x 200mm tiles to follow a grade to a central waste without cutting them is a bit of an art form.

Mitchell

ArashM

Thanks @MitchellMc for getting back to me.

In terms of functionality of slope, with the grout lines where slopes meet, is it required to have the grout line end at the centre of the drain? Or would it still work the same if the grout line does not end up on top of the drain?

MitchellMc

@ArashM,

I apologise as I'm not sure if I completely understand your question. You don't need to have the slope quartered or have any meeting slopes. That is just a convenient way to grade the shower evenly. It's not required to have grout lines end at the centre drain. As long as there is a consistent grade towards the drain all the tiling is positioned to look the best whilst being convenient to lay.

Mitchell

Former_Member

With 200 x200 tiles its not necessary to quarter. Ideally you want to position the tiles so the floorwaste is in the centre of 4 tiles.

This is more important than having full tiles along an edge.

You can adjust the floorwaste centre a bit to eliminate small cuts.

If your room isn't perfectly square, the closer the grout line is to the wall the more obvious it will become.

If you do have small cuts an alternative is lay on the diagonal. A bit more cutting but can be a good look.

Diagonal

Put 4 tiles down at the floorwaste, then rest 2 straight edges against the tile edges at right angles and check and adjust for squareness of your room.

Then lay out a few tiles to check how small cuts to the wall will be. You don't want cuts that are so small that they are hard to do without breaking the tile.

Start tiling at the floorwaste.

Layout and precut tiles where you need to do curve cuts before putting any adhesive down. eg around floowaste or toilet.

The best and easiest floor tiling jobs are where you don't try and use the glue as a leveler as you go.

So the key, especially if you are not experienced, is it to have a properly prepared gently sloping floor.

katricken

How did you use the rotory hammer drill?

I have the same issue, but I have no idea how to use the rotory drill

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @katricken. It's fantastic that you've joined us and many thanks for your question.

It would be helpful to hear which rotary hammer drill you are using. Generally, you would put the drill into chisel mode, which stops it spinning. This is done via a large switch which should depict a drill and chisel. This mode allows you to chisel the brickwork/cement away.

I look forward to seeing what product you have and providing some assistance.

Mitchell

redracer01

Hello @ArashM

I believe the mortar holding the brick has petrified and it has hardened like rock. You might need to use a sledgehammer to break the brick and mortar as recommended by @MitchellMc @ Just be carful not to hit the surrounding areas and add more work to your reno.

Red

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