I beseach you tile gods to give unto me your wisdom in my time of need.

Here she is..all ugly n' stuff.

















So you see the mud bed has failed. Im hoping against odds that it wont have to be torn out. The drain situation is also looking a little dicey.

I know from your tutorial that the proper way to do this is to build a curb etc., but the shower must be wheelchair accessible.
So what can I do?

Keep in mind we're working for housing here. I'll be suggesting whatever you suggest and we'll see what can be done. I need as many opinions/options as possible.

I think I know what Mr. Dunbar would say, but can Ditra do this?
Not good for a shower I know, but if they're not willing to pay for a new mud bed...I don't know how or if its possible to tie into the drain with ditra.

Thank you in advance.

Im in a pickle aren't I?

Your photos don't work.

Post them to an image hosting site like Image Shack and then copy them to the body of your post.

Try again, please.

One or two whacks with a sledge hammer and that mud be it out of there. Then you do a new sloped bed with a speed bump to contain the water in the shower, and it's still wheel chair accessible. Then you kerdi the shower area,right over the speed bump and into the bathroom area that is covered in Ditra of course. All seams and wall joints will be Kerdi banded to make the entire bathroom waterproof. Yes, Kerdi drain also. You'll still need a control joint over the transition from the mud pan to the plywood floor, but if you make sure you have a grout joint over this area and then caulk it, that combination of caulking and the Kerdi underneath spanning the joint, should be enough to control and cracking that may occur on this joint. If you do it correctly now, you'll never have to redo that bath again in the future.

Thanks man, ive been waitin on pins and needles all night.

I'm just going to fire away...

The control joint is necessary i understand, but will caulking really hold up on the floor?
I'm going to need to add a 1/2 inch underlayment to the floorboards to bring it flush with the existing tile and toilet flange...if this be durock does this help the transition situation?
can i forego the ditra/kerdi transition and just continue the kerdi over the rock?

what's the spread between kirdi/ditra?
i'm thinkin, if i can swap the cost of the ditra for pouring a new deck, they might okay it. My knowing that it needs to be done right and how doesn't mean they won't find someone else to do it wrong. So I gotta try and keep costs down.

I've done a drain slope with concrete and epoxy but
what exactly is what you guys call "deck mud"?

thanks a million

Kerdi isn't really meant to used on the floor except in shower areas. That being said, you could just overlap over the cement board, but that leaves you with an non waterproof bathroom floor, and if the water in the shower escapes into the room, you can get water damage to the wood structure underneath. Pouring a new shower floor is the cheapest thing you can do. I mean, a few bags of sand mix and your labour. The Kerdi drain is the expense here, and you need it with the kerdi. The caulking will hold up better than just plain grout on that joint transition..at least it's flexible. And you will have Kerdi under it too, to help with any movement. Handicap showers are a bit of work to get right at the best of times...trying to do a retro fit on the cheap is nearly impossible...to do correctly.

Right.

So for my speed bump. What if i extend the durock into the mud bed...past the lip of the sub-floor, to form the top of the screed on the outside of the stall, then build the bump on that.
Or does that make the whole transition more dangerous cause the durock will stress the mortar bed and crack there instead of at the actual transition?
If thats no good, where does the bump go? And where relative to the bump does the kerdi/ditra transition happen?

On the outside of the bump i lay a baton the thickness of ditra to leave a flat face to stop the ditra at. I kerdi over the bump to the ditra and band to it.

I've no access to the plumbing underneath, so how hard is it going to be to hook up the drain? Looks easy if ya have access.

Still up?

I'd make the bump right on the edge of the mud bed. Once you get the old mud bed out of there, you can adjust the thickness of the new mud bed so you have hardly any bump..since the old bed is already recessed into the floor. You can make the kerdi drain sit flat on the floor if you want, and slope down from there. Then overlap your Kerdi over the joint and into the bathroom area. As far as the drain goes, you'll have to cut the floor out the size of the template that comes in the kerdi drain, which is I think close to a 5 inch hole, so there would be lots of room for you to glue the Kerdi drain to the existing pvc pipe(after you've cut off the old drain of course). You can add a bit of an extension if you need too anyway.

K
Gettin there is half the fun, right?

So i should keep the mud bed and underlayment separate so the transition joint goes all the way down, allowed to flex away, bridged by the kerdi and caulk. And its okay if there isn't so much a bump as a falling away from this joint like the lip of a bowl.

I was reading up on the kerdi drain (cause it looks like i may be installing one tommorrow) and the guide says there should be a minimum of 1" mud under the flange for support? Or did i read that wrong...
I know the liner thats there is still good, cause the beds wet, but will it work if im cutting a hole in the floor, or is it a five inch hole and the drain flange flares out from there?

Seeing as ill be going over it with ditra, can my half inch underlayment on the woodside be just plain ol'ply?

For kerdi its unmodified on top and bottom, but for ditra its modified underneath and unmod on top. Can unmod be used under the ditra too? esp if i go with cbu?

thanks a googol