Just stumbled upon Hydroban, way cheaper per square foot compared to Kerdi. Anyone use it yet?
A high-performance single-family home builder shares tips from his early experience with two apartment buildings.
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Replies
You need to ask at
The John Bridge tile forum. Zillions of posts on hydroban.
Joe H
I ended up going with Hydroban after the local bathroom/kitchen store couldn't get their crap together and deliver the Kerdi product to me after three weeks of broken promises.
Used it for an enclosed shower (including ceiling tile), as well as bathroom floor as an anti-fracture membrane. Went over it with Laticrete 254 Premium and have nothing but good things to say about the product(s). The stuff is only as good as the installer and Laticrete was pretty helpful in answering my questions (in contrast to several un-returned phone calls to Schluter).
I found the brush/roll on aspect more convient than the thinset/Kerdi/more thinset option in retrospect and would definitely do it again.
Good to hear this warhummer.
How did you deal with the pan? Schluter offers a preformed pan/ drain system that is super, super convenient. Did you have to make your own pan with mortar? I find this super time consuming and fraught with worries about not doing it right.
Did you also have to use hardibacker on the walls?
When using kerdi and ditra, I always order online. You can get some pretty ridiculously good deals on ebay.
I used a cast iron shower pan (Kohler Salient receptor) to avoid building a mortar bed. I was going with a white subway tile and the cast iron pan added some nice polish with relatively minimal effort. The hardest part was moving the drain stub-out in the concrete floor (basement install) and getting the measurements just right. I nailed the drain relocation thing, but didn't account for the depth of the actual shower drain when attached to the shower base. I had to add about 1.5" of plywood underneath the pan to get the right height.
Hardiebacker 500 on the walls with mesh taped seams. The Laticrete 254 Platinum can get a bit pricy but the stuff is rock-solid and held the ceiling tiles like a champ. It was probably overkill, but at least I know my tile not going anywhere. Biggest advice I can give is to be super-anal with the seams and take the time to shim out or trim the studs so the backerboard is smooth across the joints. I got a little tired during install and let my thinset work get sloppy over a seam. I spent about 15 minutes chipping and sanding down the dried thinset after I realized how bad it screwed up laying the tile.