After reading that thread on “old bathrub with no tile lip”, I got to wondering about something. In Michael Byrne’s book Setting Tile, he talks about using a waterproofing membrane behind the backer board that laps over the tub lip. He makes the assumption that water will penetrate most tile construction. If I install tile that way, then there’s no way I can caulk where the tile meets the tub. If I do, where would that water drain to? Any response to this?
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Hi--
I asked a similar question a while back, when I was preparing to do a tiled tub surround. The answer I got was that even if a bit of water should penetrate through the tile and the backer board, it will be minimal enough to evaporate fairly quickly. The idea of the waterproof membrane (6mm clear poly, in my case) is to isolate the framing from the water, so that the water sits on poly rather than wood studs while it's evaporating.
I hope that answer was correct. I went ahead and lipped the poly over the tub flange and caulked it. Seems to be working so far...
--Olsh
A couple of years ago, I had a new tile surround installed. The contracter used that "sticky" flashing used to flash around windows between the tub lip and the studs. Then used tar paper the rest of the way up the studs. Placed backerboard on top of this and started tiling. I thought it seemed like a great idea, although I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts about this method.
Tark