Flooring Tile - Replacing shower soap dish

Hi,

Re grouting portions of shower/tub. The ceramic soap dish fell right out, leaving a large hole. It appears they stuffed paper behing it, buttered the back and sides with grout, and placed it back in and hoped for the best. (It didn't stick to the paper btw.)

How can I get a backer in place to fill up the support-less hole without taking out more tile, and re-install the soap dish? I do have one visible stud to the left of the hole. Can I adhere a "spacer" to the back of the dish to press up against the opposite drywall in the next room? Is that good enough?

I don't think the grout will hold the heavy dish any better than the last time.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Bob

If you have a visible wall joist - I would sister some 2X's to it, creating a solid subsurface and go from there. Grout doesn't hold it in place.... thinset does that.

Ok,

I can do that, I just have to allow for the backset on the dish...

Will thinset adhere to wood? Or do I need to do something else?

Thanks,

Bob

Thinset will adhere just fine, but you may want to consider using something like Lexel. It is impervious to water and sticks to anything within 10 feet of it. Just kidding, but it adheres quite quickly and permanently. After it sets up, you can grout the top and side edges, leaving a small hole in the bottom to allow for weeping.

Thanks!

I'll get started tomorrow..

Most soap dishes are not put up with holes in the wall anymore so I'm guessing this is an older bathroom. Many years ago, in my neck of the woods we used to cut a whole in the wall, tack some rolled up chicken wire to a stud, put a really really really big blob of plater of paris on the back of the fixture and force it into the whole so the plaster worked its way into the chicken wire and worked its way around the back of the wallboard. Tape it in place til it set. Believe it or not those fixtures lasted a long time and when you finally wanted to replace them half the wall came down with them.

Its not the way its done today but you may want to try it here. Put a good bead of silicone around the fixture when your done. I know lots of people don't like silicone p.i.a. to work with but I'd want to make sure I keep water out of there.

Hey,

Thanks everybody for the help!

I was able to modify a 14" long 2x4 by shaving off the leading corner to get it all the way in the remaining 7" hole and in the space between the studs behind the tile wall, without damaging the sheet rock of the adjoining room. I cut it just long enough to allow a little pressure on the opposite end to press it into place without bowing the studs and cracking the tile or backing, I also drilled a hole in the 2x4, ran a rope through it, and tied a knot in the end..This served two purposes: if I dropped it into the wall I could retrieve it, and I was able to pull the 2x4 up against the sheetrock behing the tile flush, which gave me the 15/16" back spacing needed before screwing the left side (I could see that wall stud adjacent to the hole) to the visible stud.

I put construction adhesive on the 2x4, buttered the sides of the soap dish (which weighs about 2lbs) with new grout, placed three strips of duct tape on the wall and sat in the tub and set it in rechecking alignment before taping still for 48 hrs...

Hey, it hasn't fallen off the wall and I remove the tape today to seal all the grout in the bath.

We'll see....

Bob