I am building a shower on a concrete slab. It is my own bathroom in my free time and I plan to do everything except possibly the tiling myself. I am in no rush and I’m not concerned with time savings or saving money by compromising quality of materials- I just want to do it right the first time.
I have decided on a Portland cement curb core as opposed to wood. I saw a few techniques and I’m not sure of the best way to approach this. I haven’t found a resource that covers all the details.
Adhesion between existing slab and curb core:
One suggestion was to set some screws into the slab sticking up an inch. I drilled my slab in the past and I don’t have proper tools to accomplish this with a reasonable amount of effort. Another suggestion was to pour a thin layer of thinset at the bottom, then pour cement directly on the wet thinset. I think I like this idea. Is this a common accepted method?
Reinforcing curb core:
What do people put in their cement for this? Should I include a single piece of rebar that is the length of the curb (60”
? I read about laying a row of bricks or broken cmu blocks and to pour around them. I’m open to suggestions here.
Height for curb core:
I would like my curb to be as low as possible for the future elderly me. I have seen many curbs become obnoxiously tall due to poor planning. The code requirement in my city (2009 IRC) is a minimum 2” from top of drain to top of curb. Since the finished drain will be 2” above the slab, I can have a 4” finished height curb.
After pre-pitch I plan to adhere the pan liner to the curb with an approved adhesive since I cannot nail it and don’t trust it being loose. I then will frame the curb in galvanized metal lath and will mortar the curb and pan. The curb top will get at about 3/4” of mortar in this step. I will be using a 3/4” thick bullnosed cultured marble crown on top of the curb (which will get pitched with the thinset?) and tiling both sides. That adds up to at least 1-3/4” of height added above the curb core. The curb core in my situation only needs to be 2-1/4” high, yet current typical practice is to stack 4-1/2” of wood? Preplanning really helps.
Seat:
I found a video of a seat and I like the shape. It appears to be more comfortable than the triangle shelf everyone is using, and it will look pretty cool tiled. What I don’t like about it is that he placed it on a fiberglass shower pan?
For my installation, would I install the seat prior to preslope and treat it as part of the walls?
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QY9kQUzOWA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QY9kQUzOWA[/ame]
Thanks for any and all input.
I have decided on a Portland cement curb core as opposed to wood. I saw a few techniques and I’m not sure of the best way to approach this. I haven’t found a resource that covers all the details.
Adhesion between existing slab and curb core:
One suggestion was to set some screws into the slab sticking up an inch. I drilled my slab in the past and I don’t have proper tools to accomplish this with a reasonable amount of effort. Another suggestion was to pour a thin layer of thinset at the bottom, then pour cement directly on the wet thinset. I think I like this idea. Is this a common accepted method?
Reinforcing curb core:
What do people put in their cement for this? Should I include a single piece of rebar that is the length of the curb (60”
? I read about laying a row of bricks or broken cmu blocks and to pour around them. I’m open to suggestions here. Height for curb core:
I would like my curb to be as low as possible for the future elderly me. I have seen many curbs become obnoxiously tall due to poor planning. The code requirement in my city (2009 IRC) is a minimum 2” from top of drain to top of curb. Since the finished drain will be 2” above the slab, I can have a 4” finished height curb.
After pre-pitch I plan to adhere the pan liner to the curb with an approved adhesive since I cannot nail it and don’t trust it being loose. I then will frame the curb in galvanized metal lath and will mortar the curb and pan. The curb top will get at about 3/4” of mortar in this step. I will be using a 3/4” thick bullnosed cultured marble crown on top of the curb (which will get pitched with the thinset?) and tiling both sides. That adds up to at least 1-3/4” of height added above the curb core. The curb core in my situation only needs to be 2-1/4” high, yet current typical practice is to stack 4-1/2” of wood? Preplanning really helps.
Seat:
I found a video of a seat and I like the shape. It appears to be more comfortable than the triangle shelf everyone is using, and it will look pretty cool tiled. What I don’t like about it is that he placed it on a fiberglass shower pan?
For my installation, would I install the seat prior to preslope and treat it as part of the walls?
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QY9kQUzOWA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QY9kQUzOWA[/ame]
Thanks for any and all input.
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