Tiling A Shower Floor Decisions

If only tiling a shower floor were as easy as tiling the floor outside the shower then it would not be worth much discussion. But alas and alack the project in the shower is quite beyond just a floor.

Deciding on a tile shower means picking from the options of prefab shower pans or building a shower pan from mostly mortar.

The several tile ready shower pans offer distinct advantages which maybe most people would not see so easily since most of the advantages are really hidden away.

Here are some advantages of a tile ready shower pan or a foam shower pan...

• Less skill needed to put it in
• No mortar base to get soaked with water
• Not so much chance of water wicking up the cement boards of the wall
• Less time to put it in
• No chance for buried drain weep holes to clog
• Skip all the sealing problems with liner membranes
• No liner membranes
• Pre-made curbs available too

The only disadvantage to tile ready shower pans is the cost. They cost more, a lot more.

Every masonry shower base is a custom shower base. An odd or large shaped shower means a custom pan for a tile ready shower pan. That makes for even more expense.

An exception is the Kerdi shower pan material that lets you make custom showers without much mortar work. Some is required with certain products but not very much in any case.

One the other hand, putting together a shower pan using mortar is really not that tough. It's just that there are so many steps and so many little tricks that it takes to get everything in place.

Really most of a shower pan installation is about getting a membrane like the Oatey shower pan liner right where it belongs.

Once you get the decision behind you about the shower base then the path to a completed shower is a much clearer one indeed.

Tiling a shower floor is much more involved than what it takes to tile most other floors. Indeed once the shower base or pan is in place what it takes to get the floor down is not much beyond what it takes on other floors. It really is mostly the base that makes the floor quite a challenge.