Survey: Which direction should the shower door swing?

[Gothichome]

Willa, nice pictures, for the most part I think these rooms were meant to be bathrooms, and very large ones at that, all but the one with the black toilet, it looks to be a closet conversion. We are thinking our up stairs bathroom will be the next major project.
James, I think the only issue I have with fully tiled shower arrangements is the grunge that seems to develop in the grouting, once it takes hold it never seems to stay clean.
You will be pouring a cement pan for the shower floor (I will assume) I see no reason you can not crib in the step over to Make it all one pouring. For that matter, I might lean towards making the whole pan as deep as the step over, then building the walls on the pan.

[phil]

if a molded pan comes with the shower setup you purchased maybe it is not an issue. If you wan to fit the pan to the existing space and it is not uniform you could consider fiberglass. Ive used it on a few projects and Its nice that it really lasts, you can adjust the smoothness and color easily, the gelcoat doesn't come off , most cleaners wont affect it. the materials arent' too expensive. there is some stink during the layup but it's only for a while.

Tile may look better with the theme and the need to replicate the age if the pan shows.
I did my front and back porch with new plywood and fiberglass and I got some plywood steps and covered them with the same process but used epoxy since I had lots onhand.
Both matching color and hold up well especially in the constant rain. I find a lot of outdoor wood is a lot of maintenance here. In some other areas it may be more practical but its nice not to need to keep re coating my porch seeing it turn green each year, or cleaning and re-staining or oiling wood, then replacing it when it inevitably rots. fiberglass wont rot out and is unaffected by water, so suitable for things like a pan in the shower.
If you can slope the tile correctly and use a membrane that might work for you. I might lead to fiberglass just to make it a project I dont need to come back to at least very soon. I'd work out all the roughness with fillers, then coat it with a bit of walnut shells in the last coat so its slip resistant. You can clean it with TSP or most other harsh cleaners if it gets dirty.
the gelcoat isn't like paint, it bonds to the surface differently and then after application, it doesn't scratch easily or flake like paint. You can get different colors.

I dont think there is an argument about fiberglass not being an authentic material but if you have to weigh up the costs it might be practical. you definitely don't want a situation where the shower floor leaks after investing time in the project. with fiberglass you can create pretty much any shape you can imagine so it lends itself well to a custom situation, like if you find the shower pans that are available won't fit the layout. You can make molds or forms from various materials fairly easily, then you can basically apply a coating that way or build layers so the form can be removed, we can visit how to, if you find you want an unusual shape. You can make pretty much any shape you can imagine so it fits well with ideas involving creative shapes.

[Manalto]

I agree, Phil, that it's worthwhile taking extra care to ensure that the shower doesn't leak. A little over engineering is a good thing.

I got tile for the shower floor, simple one inch white mosaic with coved baseboard. The tiler called the baseboard tile "sanitary" tile, a term I hadn't seen other than in vintage publications; the "sanitary" movement was early 20th century if I'm not mistaken, when everything was white tile.

The tile guy said something about a red product for waterproofing the shower. I didn't get the details because the conversation moved on too quickly. Incidentally, he's not going to be tiling my bathroom. Although I like his reputation and understanding of the project, his estimate was way too high.

[phil]

I don't know that much about tiling and perhaps the normal way is to use the membrane.
You probably have options. I was thinking if you did us fiberglass you might want o fill any gaps under it with spray foam so it isn't hollow. my dad made a pan like that and it worked fine but I do remember it being a bit noisy , something some foam could have prevented. its still fine after 40 years so it lasted very well. That is ,- without any tile.

fiberglass can flex, depending what is supporting it that could possibly create some springiness and tile placed overtop might crack if the surface is flexing at all . If it were applied over something solid there would be less room for movement.( subsequent cracking of tile adhesives etc) im not too sure if you would want to use both tile and fiberglass. probably best one or the other.

how do you access the trap? is there room in the ceiling below for that?
also since this is a drain , same as a sink it needs a vent. perhaps you can share the vent for your sink or toilet? Its easy to forget that the vent is part of the system and the dynamics of why they are needed at first seem a bit difficult to understand, in other words when you flush your toilet , why do you need a vent at all , cant' it just take air from the room? I guess there is stuff going on with physics that we just dont normally think about in our daily lives and a plumber may be able to inform you better on that requirement. basically as the pipe drains it needs the air to be fed otherwise you'd get an air lock and the pipe wouldn't drain freely. It might burp air as the water went down slowly or something similar. the trap is essentially an air lock so the air needs to enter the pipe on the other side of the trap somehow or it would try to suck the trap dry in order to get air in. the distance that the vent can be from the piping is another thing.

if you buy tile you could look at how much radius the corners have. If the tile is such that the corners are rounded and the grout is lower it creates a grid network and probably would collect more nasty grime than if you can fill the gaps between up more. since the walls will shed the water it might be less of an issue there. I once had a counter top made from rounded corner tile so if I spilled anything it took off into the grid, quickly spread in all directions and made cleanup horrible.

my neighbor had a floor done in her shower, it looked like round pebbles. It leaked. she had obviously gone ot great expense to have contractors put it in. I suggested coating the whole works with epoxy to seal it up from above. I wasn't there to see the result but I think she failed to mix it fully and epoxy won't cure if the hardener isn't mixed in properly. It' will never harden by oxidation like paint or something, the hardener is a necessity. it also needs a minimum temperature to harden. with epoxy and fiberglass resin the strength comes from the glass fibers. the liquid component is like the glue. Its got minimal strength alone without the glass but if you paint stuff with it it will make a pretty impervious coating. concrete requires sand and gravel and cement in a similar way. the cement is the bonding agent but it wont be strong without the rest.

epoxy and fiberglass resin wont stick to most types of plastic. plastic can be used to separate surfaces so that they dont stick , like if you were making a mold you can line it with plastic. you can put plastic over it when it is wet and work the surface to get it flat and it will take the shine from the plastic. since it isn't hardening by oxidation you can seal it up with plastic and it will still harden. If you put it on something painted it will pull off as easy as the paint does. normally if you put it over wood it should be clean or even roughed up. It will stick well to metal and most clean dry surfaces. many plastics are not porous and often they are flexible so it wont stick to that.

[awomanwithahammer]

The tile guy said something about a red product for waterproofing the shower. I didn't get the details because the conversation moved on too quickly. Incidentally, he's not going to be tiling my bathroom. Although I like his reputation and understanding of the project, his estimate was way too high.

The "red product" he was talking about was RedGard. After you install your Hardie Backer board and tape all the seams and screw heads, you coat the whole shower in RedGard a couple of times, and it waterproofs everything. I used it in my house, and as far as I can tell, it works. It goes on pink and dries red.

[Manalto]

RedGard. Yeah, that's it. More than one person has told me about it and I guess it has a pretty good reputation. Sounds like a good product.

[phil]

I can't knock the red guard stuff because I never personally used it, but this video shows it not working. maybe it was too cold or something? I'm wondering if some sort of membrane would reduce the risk of failure or if it was just not applied properly.

after watching it I'm wondering if you could do fiberglass then mastic with the tile on top to make sure there will be no leaks but consulting an experienced tile guy would surely result in a different plan. If you hire it out I'm sure they have their own techniques and hopefully they could give some assurance of what they would do if it should leak a few years down the road. in some cases it cold cause a lot of damage in other cases it could just show up as a wet basement floor or something. maybe the risk of damage depends partially on what's beneath your shower.

to apply fiberglass you just lay out the matt , then dab on the liquid until it saturates, then you can do more layers if desired to build any thickness, if you want more strength you do more layers, if it is just a waterproof coating and supported firmly underneath then one is likely enough. then fill imperfections and coat with gelcoat. you could probably tile over that? at least that way I'd feel protected against a leak but it may be partially because we natural to like products we have used with success. one limitation with fiberglass is the radius of corners, You cant' easily create sharp corners because the glass only bends so much, finer glass can bend more sharply. in general a 45 degree angle is ok but a 90 needs some radius for the bend. If you put tile you may want things square and flat because tile wants a flat surface. If it was finished as fiberglass the radius corners might be a desirable property because it is easier to clean. the epoxy is a better glue so used for fiberglass repairs so you could just use that instead. epoxy is more expensive and more flexible. If a boat were constructed using epoxy it would be more flexible and expensive, which isn't' really desirable so boats are made from polyester resin and glass but repaired with epoxy and glass, usually. the flexibility is kind of a non issue if it has a backing or foundation that is non flexible.

if you wanted to repair damage later you can scuff up the surface with a grinder and put more layers of glass, then finish with a new coat of gelcoat. for a repair like that I'd use epoxy not polyester. you can use bondo to work out the surface imperfections prior to gelcoat. you could create shapes for example if you wanted a molded seat or some weird shape. you can also use some types of pour in place foam to build a shape then fiberglass over it. with many commercial products they use a mold and instead of laying up fiberglass roving or cloth they use a chopping gun which takes a thread of glass, chops it in strands and sprays it on the mold. the gelcoat is then applied to the mold and then the fiberglass so it is sort of reversing the process. If the mold is polished and smooth and perfect , then the form will be too. If you bought a pre manufactured fiberglass shower pan that's how it would be made in the factory. Then they dont need to do a bunch of hand work to make it smooth and perfect.

one approach is to accept seeing the pattern of the glass and then put some walnut shells in the gelcoat for texture , that is a bit like using a crinkle spray paint to hide roughness in a casting rather than polishing it smooth to make it presentable. the smoother it is the easier it is to clean. If you were to lay up the glass then work out the surface there coud be some work involved in achieving a polished and perfect looking surface. as an example I put the walnut shells on my stairs and near the door for slip resistance but omitted it in other places where I wasn't concerned about the slip hazard to make cleaning easier. on the porch I'm ok that you can see the pattern of the glass but on a shower I'd want it more smooth and perfect than that. If you coated it with tile then the roughness wouldnt be an issue but the tile would not take well to a curvature.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYkQ9pNc1aQ

[mjt]

I can't knock the red guard stuff because I never personally used it, but this video shows it not working. maybe it was too cold or something? I'm wondering if some sort of membrane would reduce the risk of failure or if it was just not applied properly.

after watching it I'm wondering if you could do fiberglass then mastic with the tile on top to make sure there will be no leaks but consulting an experienced tile guy would surely result in a different plan. ...

Rather than doing your own fiberglass mat that might or might not work, you could use one of the systems from either Wedi or Schluter that are designed for this...

In our master bath we used a Wedi system in the shower. It went in pretty smoothly.

[phil]

Perhaps James could check with those companies about the price of all the pieces he'd need and then compare.
One good thing about fiberglass is that you just need to buy the resin and glass. a few items like maybe some filler, a bondo spreader some acetone for cleanup.
then there is no limitation about dimensions etc, Just have to keep the bend radius of the glass in mind and the stink of working with it. It might be possible to use pre made corner strips that are square or finer glass to incorporate tight bends. For example when I did my porch I wanted a drip edge. the fiberglass shop sold me a factory made pre formed strip of fiberglass drip edge and I incorporated that into the edges.
I imagine most of the commercial installations use some sort of system like these.

the glass comes as a roving which looks like woven cloth so sometimes that is left to show. The mat cloth is scrambled fibers. the cloth will bend more sharply in the directions of weave The mat will take to compound curves well. both are available in various weights. you use a cheap paintbrush or roller and soak that in the resin, put the glass in place and then start soaking it down and try to press out any bubbles of air. there is a working time so you would mix some as you go and mix more as you run out and try to keep going to allow it to bond properly. You can stop and start but then you sand it to roughen it up. its best to do it in one go if you can as the layup of the glass becomes one entity then. once its hardened then use bondo to fill imperfections if you want a smooth finish.

I'd try to add up all the parts needed and look at the size to see how it works out. He has some options. the right choices of tile and perhaps some of that could be part of a good design. perhaps he could use some contoured tile with rounded off corners or profiled borders or something like that to get away from the general square shapes that seem a bit new and trendy and maybe favor old patterns. one tile I really like is sort of a dark cobalt blue or royal blue color but that's just a personal preference.

with using fiberglass it does stink during use and it is a confined space so I'd take that into consideration too. Its fairly easy to create something that will never leak and would be very dependable and last but there is effort involved in working with it. The fiberglass could either be finished smooth with no tile or I think you could put tile over it and use it just to make sure it's basically a waterproof box, but I'd find out more about the bonding of the tile to fiberglass, You might want a rough surface for adhesion but I wouldn't eliminate the gelcoat because that seals it. I found my local fiberglass shop to be very helpful with info like that.

Some have low tolerance to the chemicals. I'm OK working with it myself. some who take on giant projects like building big boats build up an allergy to it over time if they dont use precautions. It might not be suitable for someone who is very sensitive to such allergies. the glass can be itchy to work with, similar to fiberglass insulation. I find it kind of fun to work with because of the flexibility of the design shape it offers. You can really build almost anything you can imagine with it , and it isn't too expensive, but it's probably not something everyone is interested or suited to working with.

Phil

[mjt]

FYI - Schluter's Kerdi waterproofing membrane can be installed over drywall, doesn't require special chemicals, and you won't have to worry about whether tile will bond to it... It is available at Home Depot.

(I have no connection to Schluter other than as a satisfied customer - I used their BEKOTECH modular screed for the hydronic heat and Ditra uncoupling products on the floor in our master bath. I'm also not afraid to "engineer" a solution myself, but only after I cannot find a product that's already made for what I'm trying to do.)