Author Topic: Redoing badly done shower curb/walls  (Read 1637 times)

cooperadyk

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Redoing badly done shower curb/walls
« on: September 04, 2016, 01:40:35 PM »
Hello all,

The shower in my master suite is a walk-in, and the three walls and shower pan seem all right, but for the entry what they did seems really boneheaded to me, a person who knows nothing about making showers. Instead of having the fourth "wall" be the entry with a curb, they nailed boards to the studs on either side of the entrance and then used DRYWALL without even any tiling to narrow the entrance, all to fit a shower door that I guess they got on the cheap. And I only got to notice this when a piece of ceiling in my first floor living room fell down when eating breakfast. Quite annoying.

It seems that at the very least they did the inside portion of the fourth wall with backer board, but the curb is just drywall over 2x4s and what may be an asphalt-coated "vapor barrier"? Seems wrong. My current plan is to at the very least tear down and rebuild the curb using backer board over RedGard, but I have to decide on whether or not it's a good idea to rebuild the side walls using backer board (and NOT having gaps near the floor like they have), or tear down the side walls and buy a wider shower door for the more sensible opening.

Any advice? I'm pretty new to this DIY thing. Thanks for reading!

cooperadyk

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Re: Redoing badly done shower curb/walls
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2016, 01:47:27 PM »
Some pics: The wet drywall on the bottom-right corner of  the shower door that started me  on this wonderful journey, the 2x4s making up the curb with my fingers holding up the only thing that could maybe possibly be a water barrier, and the wall extension to the right of the shower door showing that  they seemed to use backer board for the inside side and purple drywall for the doorframe side.

lthenderson

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Re: Redoing badly done shower curb/walls
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2016, 07:45:55 AM »
When I do a shower, the shower pan consists of a single piece of rubber membrane that covers the entire floor and goes up the walls higher than the curb height and of course goes over the top of the curb. This way if there is any leaks in the tiles or corners, everything drains back to the drain. If you tear out the curb, I would forever be worried about the joint with the shower floor failing over time. If I were doing this project, at bare minimum, I would tear out the tiles on the floor of the shower and a ways up the wall to install a new single piece shower pan membrane. For the 4th wall, depending on budget, I would tear out the wing additions and size a door to the opening. Most manufacturers of sliding doors sell them that fit ranges to cover a wide spectrum of openings and just overlap in the middle more or less depending on which side of the range your opening falls on.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!