Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - tile on shower stall floor

Hi. About a year ago, our shower stall was redone due to a leaky shower pan. The floor in our shower stall needs to be re-tiled, however. The tile was poorly done and the drain cover is not flush with the tile. Can we do this ourselves? Can we rip the tile out and intall a new drain and new tile?

saramichael,

You could do this yourself. You might have to tear out the existing mortar and reinstall. As long as you are cfarefull, this would not effect your shower pan liner. I have attached this for you...

http://web.archive.org/web/20010802230226/www.jlconline.com/jlc/archive/kitchen/mortarbed_showers/index.html

http://www.johnbridge.com/mortar_bed_shower_floor.htm

http://www.laticrete.com/Pages/howto.html

Hope this helps!

Thanks Doug, those links will be helpful. One more question - once we rip the tile out, how do we remove the drain to install the correct kind?

saramichael,

The correct drain should be similar to what I have linked below...

http://web.archive.org/web/20010802230226/www.jlconline.com/jlc/archive/kitchen/mortarbed_showers/index.html

Not sure what you ahve now and this makes it difficult to guess. It might be a a screw on type, into a galvanized drain line unless you have PVC. If you can take a picture and send it to me once you have a view of the drain line when the concrete is removed.

The below links are for 2 different brands that are most commponly used. If necesary you may have to repalce your pan line if what you ahve is not these at all. It is necessary that installation is done right for NO LEAK issues.

http://www.schluter.com/english/products/2002/sectionf/kerdidrain/802-index.html

http://partners.oatey.com/cgi-bin/db2www/framecat.mbr/framecat

Hope this helps!

saramichael,

By the way, those are adjustable for finished height! I am assuming that what you have now is not but we need to see it and determine if it has threads or is a cement PVC fitting.

Doug,

I'm not sure if ours is or not. Is there any way to tell before we start ripping things out?

our drain doesn't look like the kind in the links you sent...

Sorry Doug, I didn't see your most recent reply. It's definitely not the Oatey drain that is meant for tile shower floors. Wish it was! Once we get the tile ripped out and can see the drain I'll send you a pic of it. If it is cemented on, what's the plan?

saramichael,

Guess have to see if it is galvanized pipe or PVC - if you take the drain cover off and shine a light down, what do you see, dark walls or white?

will check tonight and let you know....thanks.

Doug,

If you look down the drain, it's white for about 2 inches. Also, I've attached some pix of the shower floor...

Please e-mail me the pics - cannot display on forum - Doug@allprohomeservices.net

hey doug - i emailed you the pix from my work email - just a head's up in case you didn't recognize the address...