How would you fix the step in a shower install? The install is tile and water has seeped in between the door and the step. All the wood in the step is rotted out. The pan on the bottom of the stall appears to be lead and in good condition. The tiles in front and on top of the step have fallen off. The tiles inside the stall by the step are in good condition. It appears they used blue board on the outside of the step and the wall where the door is attached. On top of the step is concrete board. I would like to make the step as water proof as possible. Looking in books it looks like they put sheet of thick plastic down and then cement of top of this. At this point this would be hard to do as the tile in front of the step would have to be removed. If this what has to happen then this is ok. Any help would be great or a book that deals with this would be great.
thanks in advance
Replies
Jeff,
I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused...when you say "step" are you referring to the shower door threshold that is usually about 5 inches tall, length is as long as shower door opening width, and the depth of this threshold is usually 5 inches? This is the bottom plate that the shower door sits on top of?
If this portion of the shower stall is allowing water to weep through to the outside, chances are that your lead pan is not in as good a shape as you thought. This threshold must be covered with a shower pan liner. ( poly vinyl or CPE material now is used instead of lead as a shower pan liner)
If this is your problem, ( water weeping through bottom of threshold to exterior side) I've got bad news for you...you need to rip out the entire shower floor and start from scratch...period. Water should never weep through if a shower pan is in place...absence of a working shower pan is the root cause for such seepage. So, unfortunately, you need to remove and install a newer shower pan liner, then re-tile, etc etc.
You might try a stop gap measure, by ripping out some interior side face tile next to the rotted step, then rip out this step and replace with new wood. Glue down a vinyl or CPE shower pan over top of this new step and embed this vinyl back onto the top of existing lead pan using a latex based adhesive. Then apply light layer of thinset over top of both the new and the old, exposed shower pan area and let dry. Then add final layer of thinset and re-embed loose tiles back into place.
Install cement board over top of step and then install new tile. Stay away from blue-board in this area...either use mud only to build up step, or else use the cement board with thinset.
Good luck.
Davo
Are you saying to leave the old shower pan in place and put a new one down on top of it? Can you just remove some tiles and put down some plastic on the side that is leaking?
thanks