I am building a tile shower with a fiberglass base. I am using 1/2″ cement backerboard on the walls. Do I need to put an additional moisture barrier between the backerboard and the studs? Also, when I installed the drain in the fiberglass shower base, it got off center a little bit. Now that the base is installed I noticed this. Will this cause the drain to leak? How tight should the retaining nut on the backside of the showerbase be.
Thanks for your help,
Steve
Replies
Steve,
You could put either tar paper or 6 mil poly behind the backer board. The idea is that this layer is to help channel any water that makes it through the tile and backer board down to your base and not into the walls. I think it's cheap insurance.
As for the drain, do you mean the drain pipe is crooked? Either way, before I tiled, I would try to plug up the drain pipe somehow and let some water sit in the base overnight at least.
Hope that helps...
There are paint on waterproofing agents available.
You can read about an installation here.
http://curve.phpwebhosting.com/~luka/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=howto&Number=515&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=
regards
mark
A trowel-on (or paint-on) waterproofing membrane applied over the backerboard before the tile is a better, more durable, but more expensive, solution that tar paper or poly behind the backerboard. Laticrete sells their product in a "shower kit" that isn't too bad price wise, and only gives you enough for one shower. Check out http://www.laticrete.com for more info.
A "flood test" is essential before tiling anything. You should do it right after the pan is put in. There is a discussion about this going on currently, click here to go to it.
If anyone knows a better way to paste links to other threads while you're posting, plz inform..