That system looks good to me.

Who is requiring a shower entrance be 2” above the drain for a curbless shower?

"Who is requiring a shower entrance be 2” above the drain for a curbless shower?"

The local division of inspection is implementing national building code.

I would respectfully ask which “national building code” they are referring to. Almost no residential curbless-entry showers could possibly meet a 2” drop, that’s excessive IMHO. It seems like a misinterpretation by the official OR possibly some sort of private/municipality restrictive code that was not written with curbless entry showers in mind.

I hate to see a project sidelined by code misinterpretation.

People do curbless entry “handicapped” showers regularly by dropping the subfloor 3/4” and not trimming the joists. It can work if the shower is relatively small and the drain is centered. It did not work for ours because it was a large shower with a linear drain, and 3/4” was not enough. The other issue is we used Ditra Heat inside the shower, that adds @ 1/4” of height. We dropped the existing floor joists @ 1-5/8” in order to have the correct slope, and so the finished bathroom floor would be equal to the finished wood bedroom floor. You can make the bathroom floor higher than the adjacent floor and address the difference with a threshold or transition.

The required slope is 1/4” per foot minimum, and 1/2” per foot maximum.

The Pre-fabricated Kerdi Shower pans all have a spec you can look up. To see the thickness of the edge of the pan.... The sub floor should be flat and level before installation.... so that means you could possibly have to self level the floor under pan to correct which would add elevation before the pan goes in.....the floor outside the shower/on other side of linear drain should slope toward drain also....especially if no door on shower.....so that could mean adding some elevation outside shower to achieve that. Most every curbless shower I have ever designed and installed has required adding some elevation to the floor outside the shower because of having to fix out of level....wavy subfloors during the prep phase.....you should take things like this into consideration the planning stage....every scenario is different in some respect.

And as as long as you have a standard 1/4” per foot of slope ion the shower floor pitched toward the drain ...the water will drain how it is supposed to.....

CreativeTile, thank you for the article on the UPC and the heads up that there is a conflict with the Schluter system. It seems like the interpretation varies from place to place depending on what the inspector had for lunch...

To the OP - I am very sorry you are faced with this & trying to do curbless! Every code has a provision for appeal using alternate materials and methods, but ugh an appeal could take months, it would be easier to just comply. I would contact Schluter and ask them for suggestions/advice and submittals they recommend to show building officials early on about their system, and how they have handled the UPC challenges in the past without facing an appeal process.

What a nightmare to be required to install an inch-high institutional rubber dam on an already completed curbless shower.

I assume this is a curbless shower, not an ADA wheelchair accessible shower?

It is my understanding that ADA requirements trump the 2" UPC requirement, which is why ADA roll-in showers have a 1/2" (maximum) curb, and therefore the drain might not be 2" below the curb. Anyone else know how these two rules (ADA access vs. UPC curb height) work together?

Bruce

Looks like you’re good to go since your shower won’t have a dam or curb to begin with.

In plumbing code parlance, not the tile world, the shower entry and curb are synonymous. That’s the reason for the 2” required drop to the drain. It’s about the plumbing code requirements. You can build up the rest of the room a bit and recess the shower portion to drop to the joist height and make it work. You may still need a bit of a slope into the bath, and you may need to waterproof the whole room. It depends on the room layout, and your local inspector.

ADA requirements do trump the 2" drop requirement. But I think you need a fully ADA compliant shower which means a folding seat etc. Because of the configuration of the shower we cannot put a seat in the correct location.

Im still not clear. Does the 2" requirement exist or not exist?

Now that we are talking about waterproofing the whole room and sloping up from the door threshold to achieve the needed height, I will jump in with my situation. I had a pre-fab wheelchair accessible shower pan made of solid surface by Transolid. They have the drain on the front edge of the pan. It is a shallow trench covered with a metal grate that meets up with a standard 4" square drain at the center, a couple of inches in from the edge of the pan. All the water flows to the center and the square drain handles it. They also molded a tiny curb just inside of the trench drain that helps direct the water to the center 4" drain, making the trench sort of a back-up. I think the curb is 1/3" to 1/2" high.

Because of the possibility of a back-up or other catastrophe with water in this shower, I insisted on a floor drain in the room. My bathroom floor is 8.5' long by 5 ft wide, with the shower being an additional 38" x 63" box along the long edge of that floor. The door is on the short edge, about 38" away from the shower. The door is on the right in this sketch.

First, my builder did recess the subfloor to be level with the tops of the joists. He purchased a Shluter sloping shower floor system to go under the tile on the bathroom floor. In order to get the height to slope down to the floor drain, he did have to get a piece of Shluter foam to ramp up from the door threshold. That is the only really noticeable slant in walking on my bathroom floor. The floor drain is about 18" in front of the left leg of the vanity. He water proofed the floor and the walls 5" up using Kerdi.

The drain is that tiled square with an open space around it. Over on the shower pan, you can see the square of the shower's central drain. So, my house is protected from anything in this room springing a leak.

The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't 'trump" the building code, however it is is civil rights law. The building code says how large the sign in front of your business can be. Civil rights laws keep you from posting "Whites only" on your sign.