We want to build a shower in a new basement bathroom. The room is 8 X 10 and the shower is 6 X 3 in a corner and opposite a tub. The floor has been painted and the house was built in 1922 in the Northwest. We are considering an “open” design with no glass on the 6 foot side but glass on the 3 foot end and slate on the other two. My question is do we need a shower pan given the floor is concrete? Can it be sealed? The slate walls will need a pan-like construction of course. Code dictates a minimum 7 foot height that we have to keep in mind and the area is about 7′ 2″ as it is.
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Replies
Dr,
You haven't said whether there is already a drain in this space, but as to the question of ending up with painted concrete as the base surface on the shower floor I don't think it will be desirable. Sure there is some high scale epoxy paint that you might purchase and procedure to stick, but it's going to be what color, slick, stick how long and cost how much to look like what it is - paint in the wrong place.
I think you will be better off to shape the concrete in that area to step down and receive tile with the right epoxy tileset & grout - or at least thinset with latex additive.
The concrete that has to be cut out to do this would need to be "pinned" (re-bar pins drilled into surrounding existing concrete).
I probably wasn't clear in the original post. We plan to use slate on the floor as well as the walls of the shower and not paint the existing concrete. The existing concrete floor is already painted though. There is no drain yet but it will be installed in the shower location during tear out. The concrete floor is only a few inches thick and I believe too shallow for rebar that you spoke about in the lowered floor senario, so we would plan to build on the existing surface.
Dr,Sorry I assumed about the painted shower floor. Well, we have a saying on our crew (me and another guy) that often what seems like the hard way is actually the easy way - rightly seen. It sounds like you possibly have one of those thin concrete floors I have seen in houses that age. If I am right, I think you may need to start with a complete new concrete floor - incorporating all your new pluming and shower plans. This is not cheap or easy, but with an eye toward a nice bathroom. If the old is thin, it should come out fairly easy - then dig down and get the shape and thickness right (with rebars both ways). I think the shower should "pan down" for your drain area, and be covered with tile (as described before). Get some other ideas on this - I might be wrong.
I would do a built in place shower pan like you would if your shower was on wood sub floor. You are just asking for trouble, water will escape from your shower. Maybe reaching framing, fill dirt, who knows what. I've always been told concrete can not be 100% waterproofed.
Edited 3/29/2005 11:25 pm ET by CORemodeler