"So he built the sloped mudpan, coated it with Hydroban and installed the bonded flange drain with specified 1 1/4" height from the substrate and then when he went to install the tile he said that in order to get the tile height to what Laticrete specifies it should be (1/16" higher than the top of the drain) he had to build up the mortar and basically try and follow the slope with 1-2" of mortar. " If that's how he installed it, he completely misunderstood the installation instructions of the drain. The drain flange gets installed so the rim of the flange is 1-1/4" above your FLAT PLYWOOD SUBFLOOR. Not 1-1/4" above the sloped mud bed. If that's what he did, it's completely wrong. Again, the drain flange should have been installed so the rim of the flange is 1-1/4" above the subfloor. That 1-1/4" gap between the flange and the subfloor then gets filled with deck mud, and the deck mud then slopes upwards as it runs from the drain to the walls so that it's 1-1/4" thick at the drain and, let's say, 1-3/4" thick at the walls. An increase of thickness of 1/4" per foot over the 2' distance to the wall. When the sloped mud bed is complete, the drain flange should be set perfectly flush in the deck mud. Then the mud and the walls get hit with two coats of HB. You then tile the floor but leave a few tiles out around the drain. The actual drain cover (the metal grid) is attached to a threaded plastic piece that gets threaded (or screwed) into the drain flange. You thread it down so the top of the drain will be at the approximate height of the top of the tile on the floor. In your case, for standard tile, about 1/4" above the flange. So the drain height is set in relation to the tiles already set on the floor. Then you complete the floor tile by filling in the remaining tiles around the drain. If the deck mud was properly sloped, all you'd need is the standard 1/8" thickness of thinset to bond the standard 3/16" to 1/4" thick tile to the sloped and Hydrobaned shower floor. The beauty of a topical membrane like Hydroban is that with the Hydroban membrane being right below the tile, there can be no deep wetting of the shower floor like with a traditional deck mud bed where the membrane is beneath a 1" to 2" thick layer of deck mud. Your guy put 1-2" of mortar or mud on top of your hydroban membrane. You have a porous tile (marble) on top of that mortar bed. That 1-2" setting bed will likely saturate over time. If the bed does saturate, the moisture can bring minerals from the setting bed with it through the marble and grout as the moisture evaporates, you can end up with efflorescence on your marble and/or grout. And with the bed holding moisture, it can end up being a mold/mildew mess. Those are not certainties, but they are possibilities. Also, if he used thinset to make up that 1-2" thick bed, that could also be the reason the floor has birdbaths. Thinset is designed for "THIN" tile setting applications. Roughly 1/2" thickness max of thinset. The reason is because as thinset cures, it can shrink. That shrinking could pull the tiles this way and that, causing birdbaths here and there. I don't mean to be an alarmist. But if I'm reading your post correctly, your installer screwed the pooch on your shower. If you haven't seen it before, watch this Laticrete video. There's a bit of an intro, but do pay attention to the installation of the drain flange at about 2:30 into the video, and the installation of the threaded drain at about 4:30 into the video. The Laticrete system is an excellent shower system. Sorry for you troubles.

hello Jillianfl. Top photo is the one I used to remodle my last bathroom. I loved it and got lots of compliments on it. I'm now renovating a new home, and I have the same concerns about the shower flooring. Did you end up getting some advice? What did you end up going with? Thanks in advance!

I just installed a roll-in shower with a built-in trench drain at the point where the floor and the shower floor meet. Mine was all prefab, in a solid surface shower pan. But because I was installing this pan, I wanted a floor drain as a safety back-up.. My contractor, who uses the Schluter system regularly and has taken their class, simply went to the tile store where he buys his Schluter products and talked with the counter man there. They decided to use the Schluter premade foam forms for sloping a shower floor and the rest of the Kerdi waterproofing system with it. My contractor simply bought a shower floor sloping system that was a square. It is the same width and length as my shorter wall, the one across from the room door. Then, to get the floor tile to meet up well with the hall floor height, they did another piece of foam that is a ramp, with the high end at the point where the other shower pan foam sloping floor ended. He cut it to the length he needed to get to the door. The foam shower slope was set in place on the new subfloor The shower pan was lowered 3/4" by installing the subfloor under it differently. Instead of laying the plywood on top of the floor joists, he measured carefully and cut a section of plywood to fit between each pair of joists. This left the edge of the floor joist lumber exposed between each section of plywood sub floor, when seen from above. Then the shower pan is set on the floor joist/subfloor structure, without the added height of the plywood. I believe that this was the only height adjustment we needed for installing our shower pan even with the new tile floor, which was installed on top of the Kerdi.

laynemcd24, can you share what size and type of tile you are using on the shower floor? We are planning to do large porcelain tile on the shower floor with a linear drain, just like you. I know it's always recommended to use smaller tiles on the shower floor for more grout lines and traction (and for sloping toward the drain), and I know we'll need to find a tile with an appropriate DCOF so that it's not slippery.