Shower Waterproofing Manual

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How to Build a Niche for your Shower – Part 2

Waterproofing Just look at you! Sitting there with a hole in the wall of your shower. What are we gonna do with you? If you do not happen to be sitting there with a hole in the shower of your wall read How to Build a Niche for your Shower – Part 1 and join [...]

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How to Build a Niche for your Shower – Part 1

This four part series describes methods to create a niche in your shower wall for tile. Please read through all four parts before starting. Your layout dictates the size and placement of your niche. You need all this information before making a hole in your wall! Or don’t – it isn’t my shower, eh? Framing [...]

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A Pile of Tile

Look at this. Just take a good look at it. Click on it for a bigger version if you want. That’s not wood. That’s tile. That’s cool. That’s so cool my dog just burst into flames. And now I’m kinda pissy-pants because I had to pour my beer Pepsi on him to put his sorry [...]

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Why is my Floor Grout Cracking?

Your grout is cracking for one reason and one reason only: your tile is moving. That’s it. Okay, that’s not it – Unless your grout is non-sanded and was installed in the last 28 days – your tile is moving. That’s it. Yes, 28 days has significance, it is the amount of time it took [...]

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How to Install Suntouch WarmWire In-Floor Heating Part 2

Now that your floor looks like a can of silly string exploded (figure 8 ) its time to add more layers to it and cover up all your hard work.  If you have not yet done all the hard work then your floor doesn’t look like that. Check out How to install WarmWire Part 1. [...]

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How to Install Suntouch WarmWire In-Floor Heating Part 1

One of the best upgrades for a bathroom or kitchen tile floor is the use of in-floor heating. There are several different products available to accomplish the coveted ‘warm tootsies when it is forty below’. One of the more popular products (around here, anyway) is the Suntouch WarmWire radiant in-floor heating. That’s just a really [...]

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How to Install Cement Backerboard for Floor Tile

The days of grabbing a three dollar bag of “thinset” and sticking floor tile right to the plywood in a bathroom are long gone (for professionals, anyway). For a proper tile installation you need a proper substrate. One of the most readily available are cement backerboards.  These include products such as Hardiebacker, Durock, Fiberboard, wonderboard [...]

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Can You Install Floor Tiles on a Wall?

Yup. End of post. Fine, I’ll elaborate . . . To understand this you should understand what designates a particular tile as a ‘floor’ tile. A couple of different things determine this including the PEI Rating and Static Coefficient of Friction (that’s just fancy ass talk for how slippery a tile’s surface is).

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Determining the Surface Durability of a Tile

When picking out your tile how do you make sure that the surface is durable enough to last in that particular area? Well, being a hands-on kinda guy I use to walk into the tile shop with a belt sander and test it. If the sandpaper wore out before the surface of the tile we [...]

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How to Create a Shower Floor – Part 5

And the rest . . . Once you have your entire perimeter done you simply need to pack deck mud into the rest of the base from the perimeter to the drain. Once again – beat the hell out of it. Seriously, pack it in there really well. The more dense your floor is the [...]

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How to Create a Shower Floor – Part 4

Well, you’ve made it to the final step. If you have arrived at this portion of the instructions without first reading the rest, start with How to Create a Shower Floor. Go ahead, I’ll be right here when you get back. I’ll just sit back and drink this beer Pepsi while I wait. Okay, now [...]

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How to Create a Shower Floor – Part 3

Well now we’re ready to waterproof your curb. If you have reached this post before reading the previous two, start with How to build a shower floor from the beginning.  Now that you’re ready to get the curb cut and waterproofed lets get it done. And yes, I know my pictures suck – I’m a [...]

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