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Design Dilemma Bathrooms

Custom shower, size and drain questions

last year

Hello!

I'm excited to be getting a new custom shower. It'd be great to get advice with a couple questions.

I'd really like to get a 1 piece textured shower pan/base. From my searching, most only go up to 36" in depth. Is that enough? I've only ever had a standard bath tub shower in my life, so 36" will be bigger than that, but I don't want to feel cramped at all. I'm willing to pay more for a larger custom base if needed that's 40"+ in depth.

My other concern is with the base drain. I only see bases with flat drains and the vent drains. I don't see any with a standard tub style recessed drain. I prefer the standard drain because I can put a hair catcher in there, and it's easy to take out and clean. Instead of the flat drain which looks like you need to pop the drain out and stick the hair catcher in? That sounds difficult to take out. Is that type of drain just not possible with a shower pan?

Thank you.

Featured Answer

Lorraine Leroux

last year

MANY shower bases wider than that. Saw a few on HomeDepot.com

As far as drain-as arcy_gw said.

Comments (8)

arcy_gw
last year
The standard tub drain needs to accommodate a stopper. Shower drains do not close, hence the difference. Yes the standard is 36" because it is adequate depth given the slant with water all running to the drain.
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PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
last year
A shower base can be made to any size and as mentioned schluter makes hair catchers . They also make IMO the best waterproofing too but if this is DIY you need to watch the youtube many times before installing .
Mrs Pete
last year
From my searching, most only go up to 36" in depth.

Nah, they're available in larger sizes ... but not infinite sizes. What size is your new shower?

Shower pans are definitely better than tile shower floors. They're sure to come out with the exact right slope, and they last longer. You can get tile-ready shower pans that allow you to have tile over a shower pan.

The Schluter dystem has a hair catcher that is easy to add, and you can have a shower of any size that you envision.

I am not familiar with this, so I looked it up ... WOW, the price! Almost $1000 for a drain? Seriously, what makes it so different from its competition?
adawn5
last year
I have an Ebbe drain in the basement and it's easy to remove and clean the hair trap.

In the master bath the contractor used a regular Schluter square drain that screws down as part of the whole schluter kerdi package or whatever. I got one of these OXO drain screens to cover it to screen out hair and it seems to work okay for my mom. However, my mom never steps on the drain area because she opted to have the shower slope towards where the old tub drain was on one end of the shower. I only mention this because I'm not sure how much the OXO drain cover moves/gets displaced if you're stepping on it often because it's in the center of the shower.

FWIW, The contractor was going to use a base that sloped to a drain in the middle of the shower but my mom apparently has a thing about not liking to stand on drains (???) and the contractor was happy because apparently they had less plumbing work to do since she didn't want a center drain.
Max G thanked adawn5
PRO
Stonetech/Avanti Tile
last year
builtwithfoam.com
shirlpp
last year
Search for custom shower bases on the Net. I just ordered one from TileRedi.
Mrs Pete
last year
Schluter’s standard drain is under $100, and the hair catcher is $2. I don’t know what you were looking at.

Amazon. Can't say right now just what was included.

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