General Tile Discussion

The wife has moved her things to the downstairs bathroom and I'm free to destroy. I've been dreading the tear out because the floor was poured the same way you would do a sidewalk. Hard as a rock. It has slope but is four inches thick at the edge. I had fun doing an "Isaac tear down", admiring and noting the shortcomings of the previous installer. This one was done by a good friend who has done a lot of showers but it's not his specialty. He did it ten years ago to replace one he had built ten years previous to that. The first one leaked the day it was installed. He was done and gone but for some strange reason I wanted to do an overnight flood test. The next morning there was a big puddle in the middle the kitchen. We never did anything to remedy it. Fortunately we don't use a lot of water when we shower. He promised we'd do it over some day. I couldn't believe the pan on that one. It was just light roofing paper, painted in the corners with black roof sealent. The drain was a simple top drain with no weep drain, so water hitting the tarpaper had no where to go. The second one I made him install a two stage drain with a vinyl pan. That's what I'm tearing out now. We are taking it out because the grout is stained and coming out and after watching the TileCoach I want to do it right. I got the floor broken down today and was examining the drain. For some reason he had put the vinyl directly on the floor with no pre slope. I see a number of people doing it that way on YouTube. He also placed the bottom portion of the drain so that it sat 3/4 of an inch above the rest of the floor, making it almost impossible for the weep drain to be of any use if water got to the vinyl. It didn't make any difference though because the weep drain was completely cemented over. He also didn't use anything to seal the bond where the drain clamps to the vinyl. I do see some light stains on the floor from where water must have come in at the faucet handle and run down the wall but nothing serious, no damage. It worked all these years. The tear out of the pan was probably the toughest part of the job for me, sledge, hammer drill, axe, crowbar, hammer, gloves, and ear and eye protection. Probably could have used a hard hat. A jack hammer would have been nice. I'll keep you posted on the progress. The wife hasn't given me a deadline yet so I'm moving slow

. I think she's just tickled at the idea of a new shower.