stainless steel/ceramic tile shower pan
Our client wants a flush-with-the-floor shower pan to permit a glass enclosure to the floor. This is over open-web trusses, 16″ o.c. The only possible solution we can come up with is using a stainless steel pan of sufficient thickness to be structural and welded such as to be waterproof. The plumber and tile men are shaking their heads. We think it might work if we can figure out how to bond the tile to the stainless and come up with a detail of the drain for the plumber. Can anyone help? Any ideas?
Replies
i think it'd work a good metal shop that does work for resturants could do it... if they welded expanded stainless to the pan i'd think the tile bed would have something to bite to... i'm sure they could depress the area for the drain... i'd still find a way to build pans between the joist and fill them with a mud base to set the pan on... you can flex 1/8 steel if it has no bead or bend....
jmho
The only way I've seen it done was to treat the WHOLE BATHROOM FLOOR as one big shower pan using a PVC pan liner. The tile guy then put about 1 1/2" of mud down and sloped the area where the "pan" would be and tiled with a mosaic over the whole floor. This was done to allow wheelchair access.
I don't work in the construction trades, so my suggestion may sound unfamiliar to others reading this, but there is an adhesive called methyl acrylate that just about bonds anything to anything bondable. ie. it won't bond to Teflon but pretty much will to anything else (It bonds mechanically). It's two part catalyzed, with various working times. (5 min. to 24hrs. depending on what you specify) It has the stickiness of axle grease and when cured, properties similar to polycarbonate. I believe it is only available industrially (not sold to the general public). One source is Plexus. (just do a Google search) It's also sold by another company under the brand name "Versilok." This might just work for your application, just do a sample test first. A word of caution, it smells really bad during catalyzation, similar smell to cutting acrylic sheet but 10x stronger.
don't try to reinvent the wheel...
either go the route of the chair accessable shower....
or use a small curb.
no need for stainless anything.
Jeff
Buck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
There are fiber glass pans that do what you want they are for wheelchair acess stalls not to attractive, one company is wirl jet.
i AM WITH EVERY ONE ELSE, TREAT THE WHOLE FLOOR AS ONE PAN IF YOU WANT IT TILED. There will still be a height difference at the door though.