Custom made shower base

[jimc]

Has anyone had any experience making a shower base. I need to make one that is even with the floor height, plus a small lip at the screen door, and I need to take into consideration the frameless shower screen.

I kind of understand the premise of sloping the floor towards the drain but the part of lowering that section of floor so to meet the existing floor. And what do I make the base from...standard concrete?

Also has anyone used the hidden drain cover that has a tile covering it? We saw it in Beaumont tile and it looked very neat.

[johnmc]

I did this about a year ago. I just used mortar to shape the floor so that the fall was toward the shower drain. After allowing suffiecient time for the shaped base to cure, I boxed up a hob across the shower entry and filled with mortar (from memory I think it was about 100mm high). I then waterproofed the base with fibreglass. After a few coats of the fibreglass curing compound the base and hob were ready to tile.

[mic-d]

Has anyone had any experience making a shower base. I need to make one that is even with the floor height, plus a small lip at the screen door, and I need to take into consideration the frameless shower screen.

I kind of understand the premise of sloping the floor towards the drain but the part of lowering that section of floor so to meet the existing floor. And what do I make the base from...standard concrete?

Also has anyone used the hidden drain cover that has a tile covering it? We saw it in Beaumont tile and it looked very neat.

I've done several showers like this. You need to set out some 40mm or 50mm Alum angle where you want the boundary of the shower to be and then waterproof the entire shower floor area. You can also make a mortar "preslope" before you waterproof to aid drainage using the same method as for the shower floor proper. I generally will get a prof waterproofer in because I've seen the results otherwise. After the area is waterproofed you need to set the shower drain to a height so you will have slope. I make my deck mud from 1 cement and 3 sharp sand eg washed pit and mix dry ingredients. Then I add small amount of water or better still latex additive diluted correctly until the mud maintains its ball shape when squeezed but does not leave your hand wet. You will think it is much too dry but its not. You should be able to walk on it immediately after its laid, although I would not. Shovel some mud into the shower and build a screed around the edge at one level and about 50-100mm wide. You need a wooden float to whack and compress it down hard as you go. Once that's done protect any weepholes in your shower drain from blockage with pebbles etc. Then shovel in more mud and whack it down hard. It's easier to just build up the floor roughly and then "cut" it back to the right shape so that it slopes evenly down to the drain and is low enough that the tiles will finish at the shower drain height. Take your time, the mud doesn't go off too fast. You can also use some chicken wire etc to reinforce it if you like. The latex strengthens the motar considerably. You can also mud up the whole btrm floor so that there is no step up at the shower, but you must still isolate the shower with the alum angle to avoid weepage thru the mortar. A great site to help is ontariotile.com. Hope this helps

Cheers
Michael