Tiling A Shower Pan -- With Or Without Mud?

No doubt tiling a shower pan the traditional way using mortar layers takes real skill, including if done for tile shower repair. Often shower builders now choose to use tile ready shower pans or tile shower kits instead of using the mortar based pan methods. There are still however advantages to building shower pans using the mortar base methods. These are ways the old style pans may be better.

Shower Tile Installation Success

Protecting the area surrounding the shower and getting water quickly to the drain is the function of any shower pan, traditional or not. That's true because a floor in the shower does not stop the water, at least all of it. The grout especially is not waterproof. With no shower liner, the water that seeps through the floor over time will do serious damage.

Commonly a vinyl membrane gets built into a mortar base between two layers of mud. Water that makes it as far as the vinyl then will slide down to a buried drain layer and then down the drain and away...

A properly put together shower base should keep the water in place and moving down the drain for many years. Putting together a tile shower no doubt takes skill, but it even more so requires that the installer understands the function of each part of the shower floor. Some professionals seem to lack that understanding.

Especially for standard size showers the tile ready shower pans are often just the thing. For custom pan sizes it almost becomes necessary to go to a Kerdi system or something similar to avoid a regular shower shower pan installation. With the Kerdi shower, the base is still built with mortar but the liner goes over the base instead of in the base. In any case this is a bit more than just dropping in a pan and putting the tile over it.

Tiling A Shower Pan -- Custom

Custom size showers are the perfect spots for mortar base construction. That's because the size or shape of the shower makes no difference if it's built up with mortar. A real advantage of mortar shower pan construction is the ease of dealing with standard or custom shower sizes.

Often a completed mortar shower costs no more than just the material if using a tile ready shower pan. Modern shower pans come with a number of advantages. In multi-unit installations, like hotels or hospitals, less skilled labor is needed. Eliminated is most of the wait time for mortar layers to dry before the next layer can go in. The mud base on the other hand is actually an advantage if just a shower or two are to be built. This will quickly be clear. Tile ready shower pans are not cheap.

Installing a mud base takes time and some skill, but it still can work fine in many cases. Cost of mortar base for one is often quite a bit less than if using a ready to tile shower base with other factors equal. Get each step of tiling a shower pan done properly and the resulting shower will last for a long time...