kaysd asks: "Our contractor's estimate says he will install a moisture barrier and Hardie backer in the shower before tiling. Should I be requesting a different type of backer board for the shower?" We did a hybrid remodel of our shower eight years ago: "hybrid" in that we hired professionals to redo the plumbing and reframing of the wall that had to be torn out to replace the pipes serving the shower, but we did all of the tiling ourselves. The replacement wall surface on the shower plumbing wall before tiling was Hardiebacker. Because we are belt-and-suspenders homeowners and want everything as fail-safe as possible, we painted the Hardiebacker with Laticrete "Watertight Floor 'n' Wall Covering," a kind of rubber paint, before tiling it. The product is bright green, goes on easily with an ordinary paint roller and leaves a thick film of watertight rubber on the surface when it dries. It makes a tight grip to the Hardibacker and is an easy surface to tile over. We then used an amendment (Mapei Keraply) to the thinset that we used for the tile as the second set of suspenders, and epoxy grout after tiling for the extra belt. (We used the same thinset amendment and epoxy grout for the other walls, which, however, did not start off as Hardibacker, and we used the Laticrete Watertight and the same thinset amendment and grout for the floor, also.) The walls and floor of our shower are unconditionally watertight. If you are paying a contractor to do the work rather than doing it yourselves, the extra steps that we took may be overkill, but we are here to tell you that Hardibacker can work for a shower wall.

Your welcome. Many products come and go in this industry. Products that will be going in the next ten years (my opinion) will be these grouts like Fusion and the foam boards like Kerdi Board. My thoughts. Epoxy grout is not hard to install. Only thing is that you need to clean well. I find a microfiber rag is the best thing to use. Custom Colour: 87.5% Bright White 12.5% Sautrene This is just installed. I set the grout - that took 30 minutes to place it. Then I cleaned the bucket and the grout float. Then I used fresh water and no cleaning agent to do a pre wash. Just the centers of the tiles not the grout joints. Then I cleaned the bucket and set up the initial wash with the cleaning package ad mix. This is when I shape the grout joints and clean up nice. Then you clean the bucket and set up the final wash. You wait an hour for this. After the final wash with the proper ad mix agent I go back right away with the microfibre rag. You feel areas the sponge missed. The micro finer rag leaves the floors flawless. Not a Laticrete spec but something taught to me by a pro. Once you go Microfiberrag - you can not grout the same way ever again. Even with cemenitous grout I do this. I have another grout job this Sunday or Monday. I take a quick video and post it here so you can see what I do. Maybe it changes your mind about Epoxy grout. I used to hate grouting. Hate the unknowns. The random colour changes on and on. Then I tried SpectraLock Pro by Laticrete. Now I can custom make colours and get the same perfect results every time. I just don't use it for steam shower builds. That's it.

I sent a longish response earlier - don't know why it didn't post. We used regular sanded CBP and added glitter to it: Hemway (Silver Holographic) Glitter Grout Tile Additive 100g for Tiles Bathroom Wet Room Kitchen | Easy to use - Add/Mix with Epoxy Resin or Cement Based Grout | Temperature Resistant. It worked great and we still love it after 18 months of heavy use. In the past we used the Bostik Dimension Diamond Pre-Mixed Glass-Filled Grout. It is expensive and the results were - meh. If it is the same tile, try to lay it out on the floor beforehand. It is about 1/3 the price of similar tile, but the sheets don't line up well. We ended up having to push in individual bubbles to plug the gaps. The other thing we learned: Don't cut the bubbles to make the sheets flush against the walls. It looks better to just have the grout fill the gaps.

I’m glad you were able to get in touch with someone at RomaBio. It’s good to know that they’re responsive to customer inquiries! With that said, I think I’m changing my recommendation to Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, which is so easy to work with and is available in smaller, “craft-sized” cans. (I think RomaBio is only sold in gallons.) In fact, in most cases, little to no prep. work—sanding OR priming!—is needed. She has instructional videos detailing numerous techniques, one of which just happens to be How To Paint On Marble With Chalk Paint, though I don’t think she’s doing a wash effect in that one.