Schluter Linear Drain and preformed pan Install

yojimbo2 | Posted in General Discussion on May 24, 2015 01:34am

My install experience:

We did this with an existing concrete slab. First we layed out the space we were going to jackhammer out, using the tile we were going to use to get a sense of the rough dimensions. At the same time we were also opening the floor at the toilet and tub and thinking about how to reroute the drains.

We wanted a curbless shower pitched in one direction to the linear drain.

Next we had to spot where the p-trap would be. When we did the inital layout, we spotted the drain on the un-demoed floor and transfer that point to the ceiling. That allowed us to use a plumb bob to spot the p-trap when we were ready.

Lost the pictures for the next part, but once we ran the drain lines we dry-fitted all the parts including the linear drain, which was smack dab against the wall. We pulled the drain, glued up the abs parts , and put a removable plug in the p-trap.

This is where we made our first and only mistake. When Schluter came out with preformed pans, I was super excited and have been using them ever since. Easy to use, pitch is always perfect, no hassles. Unfortunately, the no-curb thing introduces a new variable which is: the top of your drain must be a minimum of 2″ below the top of your surrounding floor. Not a problem if you have a curb. So the pan for linear drains, which to me goes hand in hand with curbless showers, won’t work with the preformed pan, which pitched 1/4″ per foot, more or less. Our shower was 5′ deep, which works out to 1 1/4″ drop over its length. You would need an 8′ slope to meet the minimum.

The workaround is to increase the pitch. Take 2″ and divide by the length of your shower. In our case the pitch should have been 3/8″ per foot. Not enough to notice.

Then we determined the new height of the pad, which was incorrect. We would lay the preformed pan on this pad. We wrapped the frain in foam, dropped in “fill sand”, and poured the new pad.You will notice we protected the drain with a altered plastic drain pipe and foam. the p-trap is in there with a plug. The linear drain drops into there later. We also created jigs to allow to screed the wet concrete to right height.

We use DensSheild on our walls, and paint the screw holes with RedGuard. I’m all about finding faster and cheaper ways to do things. Here we have the lowered pad, the denshield strips at the bottom are supporting fresh thinset that we used as fill along the bottom of the walls. The pad will get a layer of Kerdi.

Before we put the drain in, just cutting the pan to fit. There are lots of parts to the pan, not inlcluding the drain. There are tapered metal trim pieces that go along three sides, 2 in our case. We ended not using these only because our pan was not deep enough. Trying to source these pieces was a huge drag, lots of conflicting information, and not alot of install information out there. If you don’t use these tapered metal pieces you will have cut very thin tapered tile pieces at the bottom of the wall. Again, don’t use these Schluter pans for curbless showers, you will need to custom pour a sloped pad.