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Do I need cement board in these niches?

16 years ago

I built out of 1x material and slapped 1/4" hardi on the backs before sliding them in. The placement of the bottom 2 niches is critical to my tile layout; there is a chair rail that fits right in between them perfectly. I had planned to line the niches with 1/4" hardi, but forgot to account for the added thickness, and I've already put up hardi on the walls so moving them will be a lot of work. If I add it now, it will throw off my tile layout and leave me with a couple of huge grout lines. Not to mention I also didn't think about how to get a drill into the niche to screw on the board. This will be a Schluter shower, so can I skip the hardi inside the niches? I'm thinking I can, so please don't burst my bubble.

Thanks and happy new year!

Joe

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Comments (4)

bill_vincent
16 years ago
You NEED to put something over the wood, and no membranes can go directly over dimensional lumber. If the box were made out of plywood, then we could do something. But at this point, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...

:-(
MongoCT
16 years ago
...so please don't burst my bubble.

POP!

I didn't pop it, Bill did it!
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MongoCT
16 years ago
Joe,

I just saw your picture. Lemme offer you this advice:

Now, while this may sound like a HUGE step backwards...consider taking down the hardie, correcting the niche dimensions, and getting everything squared away as you intended it to be.

If you've spent that much thought in tile and grout layout and niche location, it's worth going the distance to reclaim your intended design.

Depending on the corner overlap, taking down those three sheets of hardie will not take long, and with them being screwed in, you won't trash the hardie in the removal.

Get the niches resized as needed. And when the hardie is down, take another look to see if you need additional blocking for grab bar anchors, etc.

Rehang the hardie.

So, you lose a few hours of labor. Or even three days. It doesn't really matter.

Next month, next year, or way down the road when you show it to your grandkids, you can look at the shower, the niches, and you'll know the obstacles that you overcame to create that shower.

Sometimes it is better to take two steps backward before you can take another on forward.

Sometimes it's more satisfying, and more correct, to fight to get the design that you initially created instead of letting mis-steps along the way dictate a redesign to you.

Been there, done that!

I'm on your side buddy!

Mongo
codnuggets
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks, Bill and Mongo. I appreciate the frank advice. I was contemplating the steps and sequence of a take-down-and-redo job to start off the new year, and something just dawned on me. I'm not sure how I could have forgotten this, but there is a plumbing vent pipe from an adjacent bathroom running right between the bottom 2 niches, the critical distance in question. In other words, I can't get them any closer to make up the 1/2" for the hardi.

So... I grabbed the sample tiles I have and mocked up the layout. It turns out that the quarter round that I'm using to outline the niches will make up most of the difference if I go just a tad easy on the thinset on the niche floors. I'll accept the difference being made up with caulk/thinset as needed.

I think it will turn out just fine. I tend to overthink little things like these only to realize after the fact that I wasted a lot of brainpower.

Thanks again.

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