I just looked at a job, a home owner is having a pool house built. I believe he has recieved some bad advice and some marginal work from his trades. He is looking for me to finish the job, a fair amount of which is tile work.It’s a 10’X7″ shower/changing room divided roughly 60/40 w/ a wall to the ceiling w/@32” pass through between. Both sides of the room have floor drains plumbed in them. The other room in the building is a simple half bath w/ no drain in floor.
Here is where it gets a little more complex. This is slab on grade construction, monolithic pour, reinforced w/ thickened edge. They set non-adjustable pvc floor drains (not shower drains) in the slab. They pitched both sides of the room to thier respective drains. The home owner expected that I could simply tile right on his pre sloped concrete. To make matters worse the outside edge of the room is as much as 1 1/4″ out of level. This space is going tiled through w/ a cotinuous layout, tile up to 8′ in shower stepping down to 42′ wainscot in changing room. I explained to the H/O that the entire perimeter of the room would have to be at one level to avoid a lot of ugly tapered cuts. Did I mention that the (4X7) showers’ drain is 10″ away from one wall “That’s what it said on the plans”. This space is also unheated, so during install when I’m cozy inside w/ my heater I could be setting tile 8″ away from the exterior edge of the slab, potentially well below freezing.
My thought is to breakup both drains center the one while I’m at it and install kerdi drains in both areas. I would then kerdi floors walls etc. With all of the corrective floating I would have to do around perimeter I was thinking of feathering it out w/ thin set before i put kerdi down. Do my solutions seem feasable? Is there any way that tile applied to concrete in an unheated shower won’t spaul? Are there other pit falls with this type of install I’m missing?
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Instead of trying to feather the perimeter of the floor level, could you persuade the owner to consider some sort of trim detail around the base of the walls that would give you a margin of error? Even a band of tiles in a contrasting color that would be large enough to conceal the changing width?
I'm anxious to see what responses you'll get from others on all these issues.
i think your tile on concrete will be fine... there is alot of outside tile work on pools ect... that applied to concrete...
as for the drains... again... i believe.. it's a wet area pool house... i'd leave the drains where they are.. do a mud base to level up the floor keep your slope to the drains... you might find some stainless drain covers that are about 1/4" thick and place them over the existing drains if you want so that the tile is flush ... but I've done many commerial kitchen floor drains just like what you have and never had a problem...
I'd look for a smaller tile for the floor area so that you can make the slope/taper work without alot of goofy cuts...
all & all I don't see an issue or a problem with what you have except for you have'n to get a common level on the outer edges of everything with your mud base...
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