and bill - I just saw this

"Although I HAVE made access panels out of tile, the last two tubs I did, they made the access panel in the floor, from the basement. Might that be a possibility?"

can you tell me more about this? we have a basement with a drop ceiling below the tub... murder on the neck, but maybe worth a thought...

not sure how you would handle the mortar bed & insulation if you did it that way, though

thanks,
lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: bill's previous post

They actually put two access panels in from underneath-- one for the motor at the end by the toilet, and one for the plumbing by the shower end:

The access panel at the foot end is under the box in this pic:

You can actually see the opening by the head of the tub in this pic. The mortar was set under the "belly" of the tub, in between the two openings:

thanks, bill - don't think that would work for ours since the deck is so small aside from the tub itself. nice idea though, especially when they have a shower & toilet next to the tub.

lisa

Lisa,

Sure, you can run the Ditra on the floor, then run a strip of Kerdi from the floor up the wall (or up the front of the tub apron) behind where the tile baseboard will be.

That will preserve your water-tightness at the floor/wall intersection.

Is that what you're asking?

Mongo

thanks mongo. i was hoping i wouldn't have to tile the apron... maybe it wouldn't look too strange if i match the apron paint to the tiles.

hey Mongo (or anyone) - i had also asked this on the JB forums & followed up last night for clarification & am now so confused!

(here)

i'm concerned about toilet overflows and want to try to keep any water from running down through the floor to the basement. my challenge at the moment is figuring out how to preserve the waterproofing 3" up the walls but also have a wooden tub apron.

i would prefer to *not* have to tile on the apron

my idea had been to run the floor tile & ditra under the apron to the tub deck framing, and then run kerdi or ditra up the framing ~3", then cover with the apron & have removable panels above that.

from my original posts on JB it seemed to me like it wasn't possible, but i asked for more details last night & a bunch more people responded. that added more confusion, since it seemed like many of them didn't really understand my whole post, and no one answered my actual question. But they did start talking about my original idea (to attach kerdi/ditra to the framing) and made me reconsider that it may be possible.

what do you think?

Lisa:
To be honest, I'm wondering why you're so concerned about toilet overflows. Does your toilet frequently overflow now? If so, you should probably get a different toilet or fix whatever's wrong with your plumbing.

If your concern is instead a "just-in-case," then I think you're way overdoing it. I mean, are you expecting that it would spill so much water that it would spread across the floor to the tub at a level high enough to seep through the cracks and down to the basement? I just don't think spills like that happen often enough to go through all the extra effort you're talking about.

Just my two cents.

Lisa, good chance there IS a way to do this, but it's going to take another waterproofing to do it. What is your tub skirt going to look like when it's all done, as well as the bottoms of all your walls in the bathroom? ARe you going to use baseboard? Including on the tub skirt? and if not on the tub skirt, what do you want to do?

thanks for the replies, guys

weedy - i haven't had a toilet overflow for several years, and none since i moved into this house last spring, but i just know the dread i feel when that bowl starts filling up and you're pretty much helpless. the toilet is right next to the tub, so if it does overflow, that water is going straight down onto the finished basement ceiling. it is a drop ceiling, so it's easier to repair, but even a little bit of water ruins those ceiling panels - i know because i had a small leak in my washing machine hose connection when my washer was still in what is now my soon-to-be bathroom. it had vinyl floors beneath it, but that water still found a seam and went straight through the floor & ruined 3 ceiling tiles with a small amount of water, since it caught the corners of each of them. i can only imagine what an overflowing toilet would do, to the ceiling and everything else down there.plus the furnace & water heater are under part of the tub as well, and i really don't want to imagine what would happen to my furnace if it got doused.

so i guess i'm saying it would give me enough peace of mind, i think, to get it done right if i can.

bill - i plan to use ditra on the floor, with kerdi on the floor:wall joints and 3x6 bullnose tiles as a baseboard for those floor:wall joints. for the shower curb, i plan to use the 2x2 tiles as the "baseboard" and was hoping to just have wood for the apron - no tile.

on the JB forum, yesterday, after i wrote this plea for help, more people chimed in and i got some clearer responses. they essentially said i could run my flooring tile & ditra up to the tub deck framing (under where the apron will go), kerdi or ditra up the tub deck framing, attach with staples or kerdifix, then cover that with my wood apron. that's pretty much exactly what i have wanted to do but never got the okey-dokey that it would be good.

do you have thoughts on that or a different idea?

thanks :)
lisa

p.s. - to clarify, i meant 3x12 bullnose for the baseboard tile, and run the kerdi or ditra up on the tub deck framing about 3 inches.