Almost Curbless shower...leak at the curb??
raebutt
6 years ago
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6 years agoraebutt
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Curbless shower - Do I have this right?
Comments (9)We LOVE our curbless shower. It WAS expensive. We have a pier and beam foundation. I don't know exactly the inches but I learned that because our shower was 5 X 5, this made it so it could be identified as an ADA compliant shower - no larger or smaller works for this label - must be 5X5. Once you are ADA compliant, rules can change and in some case are more lenient as far as the floor slope. You need to check your local code. Don't want that wheelchair toppling over, I guess. We have a linear drain on the far wall away from the shower opening (3 ft wide) and which always drains well with no water coming out the shower opening (we chose not to put in a door and not having a door adds SOoo much wonderful ambience, it is great) and though I don't know inches precisely, there is no way it is a 4 inch drop on the tile floor. Maybe beneath, it took four inches but I doubt it since no "shower pan" as such was used, I'm pretty sure just Schlueter waterproof sheets/products were used. We also had radiant floor put in to keep any possibility of drafts down in the winter. But I'm obviously not into the details on this very well and got help from Mongo on some of this so I will defer to him on the contruction details. But I would like to say most importantly that the 5X5 is a perfect size and we wouldn't really get any more enjoyment from an 8X5 but your mileage may vary. I can be using the fixed shower installed on one side of the room and easily reach across to the hand held shower installed on the opposite side of the room at the same time. Room enough for two. AND turn on the rain shower in the middle. Fun, fun, fun. And because ours was 5X5, we had space to put a closet on the other side of the wall of the shower for use in the adjacent room. Closet also gave us a place to install the Moen idigital shower valve and access panel. This really allows the shower walls to have a clean look and adds even more fun to the whole process of showering, IMO. It was quite expensive but if we had to make the choice again, we would still choose the curbless. But make sure your contractor has experience cause I definitely got the impression you want someone who knows what they are doing....See MoreWater flowing to floor with curbless shower
Comments (40)It took me years of study online to get my bathroom as functional as it is. Part of that is due to the newness of trench drains when I started reading. The hours and hours I put in reading this forum allowed me to judge which pros had an attitude and knowledge base that I respected and could trust. Then I read everything they wrote! Same with ADA design, read and think and decide for yourself what your needs are and are going to be in the future. No ADA design guideline is going to give you the bathroom you need for your particular issues, because they were written to make a bathroom that is accessible to their "defined handicapped person" who may not have the same needs as you. My best example of this is the 5 foot radius around a toilet that is part of the ADA guidelines. Well, if you have arthritis in both knees and cannot rise without a good strong handrail or counter on each side to push off of, then that 5 foot radius around the toilet is going to have you stranded with no way to get up. The "trombone" style bars that hinge up out of the way are absolutely necessary on either side of an ADA 5 ft radius toilet, but the place that you place them on the wall will differ for a "normal" sized person and the 300# - 800# person with the disorder I have. So you have to have a designer who understands your medical problems almost better than you do to plan well. THAT is why I did it all myself. Another issue I encountered were ADA vanities. They almost all hang on the wall (and cost thousands of dollars) to allow a wheelchair with leg rests to have access. Well, I am currently walking, and my knees will collapse without warning and I grab the nearest damned thing I can get to keep from falling. I am going to take a toll on that wall-hung vanity I spend a small fortune on! My 330# weight, pressing down through my arms until I can flex my knee to get it back into joint is going to eventually break that vanity, if I don't pull it off the wall the first time. I had to design my own vanity with legs that rest on the floor and bracing to the back wall to work for my needs. Wall-hung toilets are another favorite of an ADA bathroom. Nice and easy to clean under. You can find them that "hold" 300-600 lbs, but you have to understand a bit of physics to understand why this is inadequate. They are saying the toilet can hold that much weight when it is sitting still on the toilet. Lets say that you find that you have to shift your weight while sitting, or that your knees tend to collapse just before you get to the sitting position. We are now talking about kinetic weight, which triples the amount of weight the toilet actually "feels." Now, that toilet that holds 600 lbs is only good for up to a 200 lb person. This is not explained anywhere. I knew about this issue because I once majored in physics in college. It took hours of internet searching for me to find something that addressed kinetic weight in relation to these toilets and confirm my suspicion. Their weight rating is for static weight only. This shows how individual an ADA bathroom can be. Your designer had better understand the issues of a lot of disorders in order to design one that suits your needs. THAT is why I did mine myself....See MoreCurbless Shower Leaking into Bathroom. Help!
Comments (8)Unfortunately you can't be sure where the actual leak originates without removing the tile and inspecting. Water follows the path of least resistance and often appears in a place quite different from where the leak occurred. Hopefully you have another shower and are not using this one right now. Get a qualified professional tile contractor in to do the inspection and determine the best approach. A "patch" like you have described is not a likely fix and one that a professional will not perform as the entire shower build is a "system" with approved methods and materials (something your former contractor obviously did not follow). https://www.ceramictilefoundation.org/find-certified-tile-installers...See MoreAdd low curb to curbless shower?
Comments (43)We did have our sunken tub flood. It wasn't from the drain being clogged. The sewer pipe from our house to the main sewer was clogged by tree roots so all drainage from the house stopped. Because our house is elevated a bit from the street level, the clog was around 5 feet lower than the house. Being higher than where the clog was didn't help. The sewer pipe filled. The water didn't come from the shower above the tub. The tub drain was just the lowest drain in the house. So water from anything drain that was used (the clothes washer, dishwasher, sinks, toilets, other showers) came out that drain once the pipe filled. The tub bottom was about 3.5 x 5 feet (the lowest part so not counting the area of the step in the tub. It filled to above the step in the tub so deeper than 6". That means more than 8 cubic feet of water. Now that the lowest drain will be in a shower, a curb wouldn't have contained the water. As myrica4 points out, there are other sources of flooding. The one that happened to us once in a prior house was a toilet tank that cracked. Nothing hit it - just one night it gave way. I got up to use the bathroom (pregnant at the time so not uncommon) and my feet slipped in the water. At least that was clean water, but a pretty unpleasant surprise at 2 AM or whatever. We cleaned it up and no permanent damage. The place where being on a hill helps is if the sewer line clogs below at least your next lowest neighbor. Then the water will come out of their drain and the pipe to your house won't back up. But if it clogs close to your house, the elevation of your house won't make a difference....See More
PROCreative Tile Eastern CT
6 years agoraebutt
6 years agoHi Creative Tile! Thanks for looking at this post. I have no pictures of this 5 year old bathroom being built, just those in my memory. I am however taking pics of the new Mstr bath being built for this very reason. This" possible" leak is in a guest bath we are currently using full time. The water is on the tile just out side of the door threshold. Not much maybe 2-3 tablespoons, but it is still there in the evening after wiping it up in the morning. Like slow seepage. Our contractor thinks it is from water splashing on the glass door and then running under glass door. Maybe so but why does it return later in the day when no one has been using that bathroom?
I will try to post a pic, not really sure how to do it.
Okay well it posted but sideways, sorry. You can see the wet grout lines and the scale that has developed on the floor tiles. Any ideas? Next steps? Thanks for any input.
raebutt
6 years ago
The tile on the baseboard to the right was the solution for the wet baseboard because of the leak. They replaced the dry wall there with backerboard.
- PRO
Creative Tile Eastern CT
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago raebutt
6 years ago
PRODragonfly Tile & Stone Works, Inc.
6 years agoraebutt
6 years agoOkay now I think I may have a problem with the Mstr bedroom shower under construction because it is not hot mopped outside of what was supposed to be a curb. It appears that this shower is now raised above the floor as a step in, then slopes to the drain. No hot mop outside of curb.First pics are prep, next pics are after tile but not grouted. Do I need to halt this construction? I do not want seepage through tile and grout to floor that I now have in guest bath. Better to call foul now than in 1 year!
Sorry they are sidewase!! Hot mop, wire, then mud over backer board.
Floor looking at mud and step to shower.
step to threshold then it slopes to drain. shows floor and mud which covers hot mop.
Shower floor as it slopes to drain. Drain was supposed to be 6x6 but was mis ordered and wound up 4x4!
Grout type.
raebutt
6 years agoraebutt
6 years ago
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