A Tile Shower Floor Looks Pretty Easy
When I first started giving some serious thought to tile showers it just seemed like a tile shower floor was just about like the tile on the other side of the curb except it was on a little bit of a slope. Other than that it looked just about the same.
Of course you could see the drain but other than that a floor's a floor or so it seems.
Actually a shower floor is just the top of a quite complicated little collection of parts and pieces.
If you think about it a little bit it just makes sense that there must be more to that floor than just some tiles on a slope.
What would happen if the grout cracked a little? It seems that some water would get through the cracks... and it would or does.
Then what about those corners? Grout in corners looks like it could crack pretty easy too, couldn't it? Maybe it needs a little caulk in the corners in case the grout cracks??? But what if the caulk pulls away with all that water there??? Where would the water go?
And then where the walls join the floor looks a little fishy too. Could that be a potential leak? Well it probably could.
Tile Shower Floor Is Just The Top Layer
The floor of a shower is really much like the floor in the rest of the bathroom but what's under the tile is not like the rest of the bathroom at all.
What the base in most ceramic tile showers includes is what's called a concrete shower pan or just a shower pan.
It really is not a pan at all but it's a couple of layers of mortar with a vinyl or PVC liner membrane built into the whole base. That shower liner is what stops the water that gets through
- cracks in the grout at the corner,
- failed or pulled away caulk,
- cracks in the floor grout,
- voids at the wall and floor intersection,
- porous grout,
- tiles in some cases.
If you build what's called a shower pan for tile you really put in the one waterproof layer that keeps water in the shower and not somewhere that it doesn't belong.
So, you see, the tile shower floor is just the top part of the base and is backed up by what really keeps the water in the shower. The whole base of the shower is more than meets the eye since the part that really counts is buried and out of sight.