Shower Pan Remodel

T

TexJake

< 25 Posts
I am redoing a bathroom and will be making the shower a bit larger. It sits on a concrete slab and has a 2 inch metal drain pipe of some sort that is cut off a little below the tile floor surface. What I would like to do is build a new shower pan on top of the current shower floor by: 1) pouring self-leveling concrete over the existing floor to create a clean level surface to start from, 2) create an initial sloping layer of mortar, 3) place down a liner, 4) create a second sloping layer of mortar, 5) then finally tile on top of that.

My understanding is that I would have to use an adjustable shower pan drain (likeThe Link because I will be tiling the floor. My concern is how to extend the drain pipe higher in order to connect the new PVC drain to it. The drain pipe is enclosed with concrete nearly all the way up to the tile floor so I cannot connect the drain directly around the pipe. I am thinking I will have to insert and adhere a short segment of pipe inside the existing pipe then adhere another short segment of 2 inch pipe around that piece so that it can connect to the drain. Is there anything wrong with doing it this way? My plumbing skills are very limited and the guy at Lowes said this would be fine but I don't entirely trust his knowledge. I would also appreciate any general pointers about the shower pan process.
 
Is the pipe threaded? INSIDE threaded. It very well may be threaded to accept a screw in drain fixture. The reason I say this is your description of "cut off" below grade lends me think it might be threaded.

WIth the pipe below grade my first thought would be on making sure my drain connection worked. If threaded you might have it really easy. But if threaded I would NOT level and then grade. I have found that in plumping changing distances in small increments has created many pains in my ***. Figure how you are going to do the drain.

ALSO - I don't really see the need to do the self leveling unless the surface is horrible. Just skim coat what you have to, in order to smooth the contact surface for the pan.

To me EVERYTHING is key to the drain and it's ultimate height. How much height are you going to need for the 2 inch pipe and the 1-1/2 insert. You may NEED more height to do this. Check for the threaded pipe first- usually drains screw in.
 
I would STRONGLY recommend you get a pro to put in your shower pan. If that thing has even a hairline crack in it you could be in for a world of hurt (and you may not even know it for a while).

Most of the new houses use a liquid fiberglass that dries and hardens and is extremely strong. If this is an average size shower, you are probably looking @ $400-500.

Is this an upstairs shower?
 
Personally, I'd bring in a good plumber to make sure this is done right. In my experience shower drains are very unforgiving and the implications of a leak can be nasty. If you're in Austin, I'd recommend Union Jack plumbing. Nick is as good as they get and will make sure it's done right.
 
you definitely want a plumber. might charge $600 or so to do the pan, but if you do it yourself you'll spend more than that. i doubt seriously that an amateur would make a water tight seal with the shower pan material and FHA strainer on the first go round. you should also use dam stops and threshold corners. people think it's as easy as folding the material but it's actually pretty difficult.
also, you are likely going to need to chip concrete around the existing drain pipe where you will either need to convert cast iron to PVC or if it's already PVC get a coupling in there. if you've ever done any slab plumbing you will know that this is a much bigger ***** than it might seem.
whether you do it yourself or have a plumber do it, make sure it is tested before you proceed. if not - and say you have a leak - the installer will probably assume the tile guy or sheetrock guy tore it and they will point the finger back to the installer.
 
Summer, unfortunately the drain pipe isn't threaded so I am going to have to cement a 1 1/2 inch pvc insert inside of it in order to create a connection with the drain. I will need more height, as you mentioned, to allow for the insert and the two inch pvc middle piece that will connect with the drain. This is why I was planning on using self-leveling concrete to raise the floor level to be flush with the new drain height.

Dead Horse, I will definitely look into the liquid fiberglass. I am not a glutton for punishment but I have a limited budget which is why I may attempt it on my own. I do have a friend with pretty extensive plumbing knowledge who will be available for guidance so I am not flying completely blind. It is a first floor shower sitting on the concrete slab.
 
Most builders use companies for the pans that only do pans. The plumbers set the drains and caps them and the pan guy does his thing. Then the pan is filled with water for a few days to see if it holds. If it holds, the pan is ready to be tiled.

One that I used with great results in the past was this company

www.ducksbackfiberglass.com/

Save money on the tile work, you can screw that up and it will only look like ****. If you screw up your pan or your drain you could cause thousands of dollars in damage.

Good luck, pm me if you need some advice/referrals.
 
it's not a question of whether it's brain surgery, it's a question of saving money. yes anyone could do it with practice,
i'd pay $600 - $800 and have it done to code. once the tile is in, if it leaks, you have to rip the entire thing out - tile and all and do over.
 
Admiral, that's a fair point. I am going to look into shower pan installers in the area to see what they charge. If it is reasonable then I might just hire it out. I had a plumber come give an estimate on putting in a new shower valve and installing the toilet flange and he wanted $1500. That may be very well be reasonable, I don't know, but in either case I couldn't afford it. If installing a shower pan is anywhere near as expensive I can't afford it. Plus, I have some remodeling skills having just finished a new study which entailed new walls, baseboard and crown molding, etc... I am not Bob Vila but I follow instructions well and am reasonably comfortable with basic construction techniques. That said, this is most daunting project yet.

I went to home depot today and bought the 2" drain as well as a 1 1/2" to 2" expander piece. I also bought some 1 1/2" pvc and test fit it into the existing drain pipe. It fit very snug and worked well with the expander piece. I will cut a short piece of 1 1/2 and 2" pvc and put both into either end of the expander and then the 1 1/2" piece into the old drain pipe, then the 2" side into the new drain. It seems like all the pieces fit well and while they raise the floor height only a few inches, I was thinking I could create a raised floor using 2x4 with plywood as the base (as this is what most of the floor bases seem to be in the books and how to videos). This would allow the new drain to be flush with the floor without having to pour a bunch of self leveling concrete to raise the existing floor and which is $30 a bag. The main downside is that the shower floor will now be a good 3 to 4" above the rest of the bathroom floor, but I don't know if there is anyway around this other than knocking out the existing concrete which would be a bear.
 
It's not just an issue with tearing out the tile. It's an issue of the pan leaking causing rot or, even worse, severe damage to your foundation. Back when insurance covered the costs associated with plumbing leaks (they did away with the coverage under the ruse of avoiding nasty and silly mold claims) I think insurance companies were paying around a half a billion a year before the mold "crisis" was invented.
 
Not at all, I am suggesting that (as a General Contractor myself) there are certain things that a shade-tree DIY person should not try and tackle. Shower pans would be high on that list.
 
in a previous life I worked as an "expert witness" in construction defect cases...I've seen many a pro-installed pan go bad. I cannot imagine a newbie trying this at home.
 
John Bridges web site is really good. I would strongly recommend that you get his book, Tile Your World, and read it thoroughly before undertaking a shower pan project. It is well written with lots of photos to make everything clear for the rookie. My wife and I used the book and his web site to do four showers in our vacation house using the products that Bridges recommends (Schluter-Kerdi products). Due to time constraints, we had to have the actual tile work done by subcontractors, but the shower pans were tight and ready for tiling. They were so impressed with the Kerdi pan that they said they were going to start using it.

Although we have tiled several showers, this is the first time we built the pans. The pans are a lot more work. Do your research: read the book and go to a tile supply store that sells Schluter-Kerdi and talk to them. This is a step that you don't want to screw up.

By the way, although our project was new construction, I'm pretty sure that the book had a lot of information (and pics) about your situation. IIRC, the solution involved busting out the concrete around the drain to expose the plumbing, and then fitting a proper drain onto the drain (rather than inside) and building up the pan base with a dry mix mud.

Another point to add is that all the talk has been about a "pan", but the method and products we employed covered all shower surfaces (floor and walls) with an impermeable Kerdi membrane that overlapped at all seams. The showers came out great, by the way. If I knew how to post pics I would add a few.

Good luck!
 
Good job Kahuna, and nice post. If I had to redo a shower today, I would use the Kerdi system. Pretty cool that you can put it right over sheetrock and be waterproof. I would have a lot of confidence in that installation.
 
Here's some pics of my shower pan being put in on a remodel. ~500 bucks to make the custom pan.

PA010569.jpg




P9300563.jpg


PA020574.jpg
 
That PVC liner is the stuff that leaked from my upstairs shower down into the dining room below. The remodeler I hired to fix it said they see plenty of PVC pan failures. They recommended fiberglass which I went with and have never had a problem since.
 
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