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I’m going to have to do the same type of repair. I’m NOT a kitchen and bath guy. I avoid this as much as I can. But, I sometimes can’t say no to a good past customer.
I remodeled a bath and installed a fiberglass tub. I asked the supplier about setting it in a bed of thinset. He said that this particular model does not need ot be installed that way. I took his “expert” advice.
A month later (after the job is done), he called me and told me that his info was bad, It must be installed over thinset.
I’ve been racking my brain trying how to get this stuff in there.
I like jeff’s idea about pumping leveling compound. I just don’t know how to keep this thin stuff up against the bottom of the tub.
I’ll be experimenting this weekend with pumping this stuff into a trash bag laid under the tub. I think I’ll try one of those $10 drill attachment pumps. I can afford to ruin one of those. (If I keep making these kinds of mistakes, I won’t be able to for long) I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Jeff,
Fortunately there is a suspended ceiling below this tub and a large opening in the sub floor for the drain and overflow. Access to the space is not a problem. Keeping the compound from flowing out of the opening and into the half bath downstairs is.
I can easily place mortor by hand under nearly half the tub. I just can't get to the back end of the tub.
I mentioned your pump idea and my trash bag idea to my wife. She called it a bath tub angioplasty.
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I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for
repairing a one-piece fiberglass shower floor that
is beginning to sag. The unit was placed on a pile
of martar, but the mortar only supports about one
third of the floor area. The shower unit is in
great condition except for the area not supported
by mortar. I was thinking about trying to inject
some NS grout or foam or something. Any ideas?
Thanks.
*Bear, Many plunbers today use the foam but I dont like it. It could expand enough to give you some problems. If you can get some grout or mortar under the tub it would be better. From your description I assume you can get to the underside of it. If you use foam fill your tub first and leave it for 48 hours before draining.Rick Tuk
*Bear, what I want to know is who set the fiberglas pan w/o adequate support? I've seen this far too many times. If you don't take care of the pan movement now, soon enough it will fatigue as evidenced by radial cracks going from the drain to the corners of the unit.Unless you have experience with the foam, I'd suggest you don't use it; you need to know how much is enough. It can be risky business. I'm curious: from what location are you planning on accessing the underside of the pan? The pans I have seen have the perimeter edge return to the subfloor.
*It is a one piece shower. I can only access the cavity by removing drywall on the valve side of the unit or by drilling holes through the outside of the curb. The problem is that if I use N/S grout, I'll have to figure out a way to pump it into the cavity. It is a basement slab.
*bear,I have been in the same predicament. I handled the stuation by pumping in a cementicious self leveling underlayment. This stuff is about the consistancy of warm pancake syrup. Flowed in real nice. You can easily mix up a hundred # in a metal 20 gallon trash can. Stick a small submersible transfer pump in the trash can and let her rip. Make sure you caulk all around the base and framing so it doesn't flow out. Most tile distributors will stock it. Brandnames: Customs, Laticrete, Hydroment and Mapei.Good Luck, Jeff
*Well, I'd say Jim has a handle on this kind of thing. Just say goodbye submersible pump. Would you have to do this in lifts?
*I'm going to have to do the same type of repair. I'm NOT a kitchen and bath guy. I avoid this as much as I can. But, I sometimes can't say no to a good past customer.I remodeled a bath and installed a fiberglass tub. I asked the supplier about setting it in a bed of thinset. He said that this particular model does not need ot be installed that way. I took his "expert" advice. A month later (after the job is done), he called me and told me that his info was bad, It must be installed over thinset.I've been racking my brain trying how to get this stuff in there. I like jeff's idea about pumping leveling compound. I just don't know how to keep this thin stuff up against the bottom of the tub.I'll be experimenting this weekend with pumping this stuff into a trash bag laid under the tub. I think I'll try one of those $10 drill attachment pumps. I can afford to ruin one of those. (If I keep making these kinds of mistakes, I won't be able to for long) I'll let you know how it goes.
*Okay, tell me what you think about this method. Since you'll be tearing out some quantity of drywall to access the underside of the shower unit, why not go all the way and make the opening large enough to span the width of the pan? The opening would only need to be 4-5" max. up the wall above the floor. This would allow you to place a couple of levers (tapered 2x4s?) under the pan using the soleplate as a fulcrum. You'd expertly lift the shower unit just enough to allow you to place a fast setting mixture--a stiffly mixed cementatious product?--by using a small ram to stick and poke the mixture into all corners of the pan. Perhaps Joe or FredL could do the weight & balance calcs to tell you just how heavy those helpers standing on the levers need to be.
*Ryan,I didn't trash the pump. We still use every week to pump glycol solution. Just make sure you have a trash can full of clean water to place the pump in IMMEDIATELY after pumping the leveling compound. I can't tell exactly what type of pump it is but we got it at Graingers.The problem with using a pump on a drill is moving what you have mixed before it starts to take a set (10 mins or less). Maybe I should explain how we did this in more detail:1) We only had access to 1 side of the shower pan.2) We could not destroy any wall surface above the 6" base (cofferred wainscoat with recessed panels glued to sheet rock).3) We drilled two 1 1/8" holes at each ended of the wall abutting the shower to place the rubber discharge hose thru.4) On this particular shower base (the first of 32 in a Casita tract in Pinnacle Peak, AZ) we had no idea how much material it would take. The idea was to shove the hose thru the first 1 1/8" hole snaking it to the opposite wall plate, pump in as much as we had mixed, rinse the pump, mix another 4 bags of leveling compound and repeat the procedure thru the other hole. When we had pumped the space full the first hole would act as an indicator of whether or not we had enough due to it exiting thru the 1st hole. Of course the amount of material we actually used in each of the 32 was different do to the variation in the size of the frameout for the trap and drain in the slab. We pumped a total of "24" bags into a couple of them, average 8 bags in the rest. Getting the picture? Very expensive mistake for both the plumbing contractor and the developer/builder.We added prewet Norlite(perlite) to the mix to extend the working time and also reduce shrinkage due to the lift thickness.If you only have one of these to do and it is a 3' x 4' base or similar, you may try doing several lifts by mixing 1 bags at a time and rigging up a funnel out of pvc using a 12" bell reducer to receive the material and further reducing to 1" or whatever the maximum size of hole you could get away with. Just an idea, if you don't have a pump .Again, good luck,JeffPS: I just read Rich's response and we didn't have a distorted or sunken receptor, they were only "spongy" to the step and we felt they would stress the scratch, brown and marble walls eventually. I know what you are thinking......why go the the expense of installing a marble shower surround with a cheap-ass plastic shower base? Me too!!We had the builder signoff on the spongy bases before we scrtatched and floated the walls. Good thing for us, eh? "Proceeding with work constitutes acceptance of the underlying conditions." How many times have those who apply finish materials heard that one?Jeff
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Angioplasty? Hmm... Call it that and i bet you can charge more!
Maybe a variation on the dense-pack cellulose installation procedure would work? Slide the tube all the way to the back of the enclosure and pump a thick mix there until the pump starts to bog down ... then back off slowly.