is this sunken or is it just the photo?? and if it is sunken, why a curb?

and the time to do the curb was before the hot mop.

is the family member willing to pay for the modification?

Mittens,,you again!! what in the world? are you redoing the entire house?

@Beth H. : LOL, it's not sunken. My camera has a weird way of turning photos into optical illusions lately!

And, yes, me again! I'm redoing the entire house (full remodel plus 750 SF new build).

OK, good to know there's no way back. Onto other issues! Thanks.

Why anxiety over curbless Mittens?

Let me guess...the anxious person is "older" and is afraid curbless will lead to water on the floor (fear of slipping / fear of your floor being ruined). Suggest using heavy, non-slip rugs until they get accustomed to using the shower.

The person in question is extremely sensitive and well meaning and wants to make sure there won't be any chance of flooding. I think this person overheard a horror story about a neighbor's shower flooding the entire house, fueling the anxiety.

1) Is there going to be any glass on the open sides?

2) Regardless, there might be a little minor spray on the floor, but flooding? I'm not sure how you counter such a bizarre concern.

how is it supposed to flood? just curious how they think it will happen? and let's just say the drain does back up, while someone is in there taking a shower, and falls asleep for an hour, the water would still flood over the curb.

Here's what you say. "everything will be fine. it's too late to add the curb without tearing out the entire thing and starting all over again. the cost would be $7500." see if that works. sometimes people just need reassuring, a pat on the po-po, and you continue on the way you want.

I vote for the pat on the po po.....................jeesh.

Flooding is a very valid concern when doing a center drain curbless that doesn’t have the 2” drop from the entry to the drain. The only way to get that 2” is with a trench drain opposite the entry and at least 48” of depth.

This should have been done as a wetroom. Waterproofing the whole floor is cheap insurance.

I’ve heard of a case where a building inspector rejected a curbless shower. They put up a surface-applied rubber wheelchair dam (collapsible) and that was considered fine and did not penetrate the waterproofing. Whether or not they removed it after inspection IDK, or if the tile surface was damaged or discolored.

LWO has valid points; your shower base sloped to the center point. How much is the drop on a 24x18 inch side? Why wasn't the slope done to one end of the shower?

That would be my question but honestly get a nice thick mat for in front and be done.

The overall slope is a little more than 2" and the shower will be enclosed with glass on two sides and tile wall on two sides. When I asked our GC if we'd need a linear drain, he said as long as it's sloped properly, we could have a central drain. He's been building bathrooms for 30 years, so I didn't question it. I guess we'll find out for sure when the city inspector comes in a couple weeks! There have been several inspections thus far, though, and there were no concerns as far as I know.

(As for our resident, of course I assure her every which way. She has only good intentions, so it is what it is.)

The floor is sloped 2" from the outside edge to the drain on all 4 sides? That would pretty steep in that short of a span and it does not appear to be built that way.

I didn't measure the slope myself--sure hope it won't feel slanted! But each time I've wondered if our G.C. goofed (based on what I've read on Houzz), it's always turned out to be fine.

This photo is pretty deceiving with the fresh hot mopping, so I'll take a closer look (and better pics) today.

As mentioned above, use a surface-applied rubber wheelchair dam after everything is done if this is still an issue (whether it's a issue in reality or just in the person's head).

A non-permanent solution to a non-problem. :)

2" drop over 18" or 24" will be quite substantial. You should be able to tell by eye as that will be a pretty severe drop for sure. Which is why in a smaller shower a linear drain on one end is typical as the slope would then be in one direction as opposed to a rectangular bowl.

A 2” drop over 2’ ski slope wouldn’t meet any sort of code. The max allowable slope is 1/2” per 1’. The minimum is 1/4” per 1’. That appears to use the standard minimum slope. Or, to have a mere 1/2” of drop between the entry and drain. That could very easily be overwhelmed with a drain blockage.

What kind of flood test will they be doing in order to get the 2” of water puddle contained in it to test it?

That should have been designed as a wetroom, with a better drain location.

Is it possible that a mortar bed will be added that will get the slope back within normal parameters?

Good question! Got any other questions for a building inspector? A friend of mine, who happens to be a former building inspector for our city, is on his way over!

Hot mopping is done over the preslope mud bed. Not flat to the floor. Not a fan of hot mopping. Walls need waterproofing too. And the two have to be tied together. What waterproofing are they planning for the walls? What is the section detail tying the two together? If you are doing glass, how do they plan to handle penetrating the waterproofing layer? Caulk won’t cut it. A channel laid into the tile can work. If planned and detailed for properly at the design phase.

A curbless shower is not “just” a regular shower without a curb.

I didn’t take notes while my friend the former building inspector was talking to me, but he said it all looked right! He took out his level, checked out the waterproofing —thumbs up! He was one of our city's building inspectors for years, so I am guessing he knows what he's doing! :))

Mittens - if your inspectors are anything like the inspectors I had in Los Angeles, I wouldn't worry about your shower :-). They came I think three times to test everything and I had the standard 24 hour flood test. Thankfully we aren't in some of these Wild West jurisdictions where there seems to be no inspection of plumbing or electrical work.

I had what is called a cold mop waterproofing on the pan. This is done in lieu of hot mop in SoCal for high rise and mid rise buildings because it is flexible and so it doesn't crack as the building sways :-).

LOL, @Helen, your last comment reminds me I was taking a shower the last time a quake hit. Pretty sure I had some seriously sloshing going on! :)

Have a friend with a curbless in her short term rental property. Linear drain would somehow clog up with hair and what not, then flood the thing over and over. Drove her nuts.
I noticed when I use my own tub/shower I often end up with an inch of water before I even realize it. The users of the shower, especially those with long lair like me, may just have to really pay attention while showering and clear the drain cover if water starts to puddle.

@Mary Hale, thanks, I believe this was one reason our GC stuck with our central drain (well, maybe that and the fact that we're on a slab and he was trying to avoid having to go through 8" of concrete to rearrange pipes underneath?). He just showed me the drains he bought--all with serious hair catchers! :)

At least have the rest of the darn room hot mopped for goodness sake!

With a center drain, simply dropping a washcloth or fainting and landing on the drain can cause a flood. So tell the person they have to use a netting poof to wash with, and no falling and covering the drain is allowed. '-)

Silicone a 1" high piece of 1/2" color matched solid surface in front of the shower door. It won't be much to step over, it's easily reversible, and would probably make the user feel better.

There is no 2" drop required per IRC But thats another story altogether :)

Food for thought , Take an average 3x4 shower with a 2"(inside dim.) curb. Do some math on cubic sq' and then compute your water supply GPM. How long does an average shower take to flood versus A curbless.

Keep those traps and drains clean people and hire wisely.

The answer to that is 6 minutes. It only takes 6 minutes for a 2”x3’x4’ curbed shower to flood when the drain is blocked. If you don’t even have that 2” depth reservoir? Say, half that 2” reservoir? 1”?

3 minutes. it takes 3 minutes to flood your bathroom outside the shower area.

And that 3 minutes folks, is why a wetroom design should always happen.

@Mint tile Minneapolis and @User, funny, I would not be at all surprised if our resident Frequent Fretter (too smart for her own good) did that very calculation weeks ago and that's probably what brought this on!

However, my building inspector friend backed up what our GC has been saying: that our all new plumbing and sewer drains were built to handle a herd of elephants. He also pointed out that our home's location---atop a hillside neighborhood above town--gives it an extra edge, gravity wise, when it comes to sewer function. Fingers crossed?

Oh wow! It just hit me...this whole thing might be less about the fear of flooding and more about the Frequent Fretter's desire to soak her feet clean while she showers. I won't go into details, but this would be an understable explanation to all the anxiety.

Thanks all! Happy weekend!

" He also pointed out that our home's location---atop a hillside neighborhood above town--gives it an extra edge, gravity wise, when it comes to sewer function. "

As if gravity is stronger the higher you go...

No, being located on hillside does absolutely nothing to “aid” in any plumbing. It does not matter if you are in a dead flat desert scape or on the side of Mount Baldy. All gravity plumbing runs are specified at 1/4” per 1’ minimum. 1/2” maximum. More slope than that is actually worse. The liquids outrun the solids carried with them. There is no “additional gravity” on a mountain than in the valley. The absolutely undetectably minuscule change in gravity would have elevations and mountains have LESS gravity. Not more. This is basic science. Non factual comments like that would be pretty concerning to me.

Are flooded showers actually something that occurs in real life? If a shower drain is sluggish enough not to drain properly I would assume a person is going to notice that before it goes over the curb. If someone has fainted in the shower and is blocking the drain for a long enough period of time to flood, I personally would have greater concerns than the flooding :-). While I believe in taking reasonable precautions, there are some things which are so remote in terms of occurring that I don't need to plan around their occurrence. :-).

FWIW, I had a drain cover without screws installed in the master bath with a hair catcher below because I know that if I have to screw and unscrew the cover, it might not happen with regularity :-). When I discussed with my designer, she said that screwed covers were intended to prevent intrusion of rodents and I have no serious concerns about a rat deliberately choosing my shower on the tenth floor to stage his escape from the pipes in the building :-).

There are also excellent hair catchers that sit on top of the drain which are easy to use. I used to have an old fashioned type of bath plug that lifted out and it was astounding how much hair would get attache

Our garage is directly below the curbless shower, we call it the free car wash.

Seriously though flooding from overflow happens all the time from normal sinks, bar sinks, and bath lavatories with no overflow. Nobody has to die on the floor to block a drain, just a trickle or drip left on by accident with the sink drain closed = flooded floor. It happened here with a remote cute little brass wet bar sink we forgot about that hasn’t been used in 20 years, a worker must have bumped the faucet by accident. No wet room, no waterproofing, no tile, just wood floor on wood framing. A one-time “disaster” like that cleaned up fine, dried out, didn’t cause permanent damage and never happened again. We still don’t put overflows on kitchen or utility sinks and don’t waterproof the entire house like a wet room just in case.

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.

Here's an example of where height makes a difference. height doesn't change gravity, but the height of water above a point increases pressure at that point. There is the old experiment where you fill a cup with water and make a hole in the side near the top - water trickles out. Make a hole near the bottom, a bigger stream comes out because the water pressure is higher at the bottom of the cup.

Sometimes, especially in the fall when the rainy season starts, the storm sewers clog with leaves and other debris. Our house is at the bottom of a bluff. One year the storm sewer clogged somewhere near our street. With water filling the storm sewer pipes from above the bluff, the water pressure was so high that it pushed the manhole cover off in front of our house and we had a mini geyser around 6 feet high coming out of the hole. Another time the clog must have been at the top of the bluff because a parking lot at the top of the bluff flooded to more than a foot deep - but I doubt that there were any manhole geysers that day (at least I didn't see any). There wasn't the high pressure that we got, but there was plenty of water.

Agree with @kudzu9 that this thread has overstayed its welcome. However...

Since @Cloud Swift brought up the topic of clogged sewers...I will now share one reason why our resident Nervous Nelly has anxiety over the possibility of drain overflow.

For years, we had many instances where Nelly's toilet clogged and overflowed. Twice we had to replace the hardwood flooring in the hallway because it overflowed so badly. Unfortunately, Nelly happens to be seriously germ-phobic and these instances only made things far worse in that regard.

However, my husband and I made the simple assumption that Nelly was either using too much toilet paper or not flushing properly. In any case, we almost always made her do the plunging to clear the clog. It was quite a task But she never complained.

Fast forward to this year, when we finally demo'd the bathrooms. Our GC almost fell over when he pulled out the pipe from under Nelly's toilet. The pipe was almost completely clogged with roots! No WONDER Nelly's toilet hadn't flushed well!

My husband and I felt TERRIBLE. Obviously, we should have called Roto Rooter years ago! Nelly just smiled. Needless to say, we promised we'd never let pipes get that bad again!

I have a similar issue. The tiles are done in the curbless bathroom but the inspector insist to waterproof the entire bathroom floor as he thinks it is a “roll-in type shower”. What could be my options here without removing the tiles? Thank you in advance.

leeaoran, this is a 2 year old post w/a title unrelated to your question. no one is going to see it. So please start your own post w/your own question and post pictures. You'll get a lot more info. thx