So glad you asked this question, I was thinking about this myself I love the no grout idea.

Thin slabs are not a problem weight-wise, but you need a slope somewhere. Either on the floor proper, or if you have an insert, below the insert.

Polished granite is slippery when wet. Honed less so.

There are faux-slate textured black or dark charcoal tiles that give good traction underfoot. With a dark or charcoal colored grout it'll blend well.

I've used DAL Continental slate Asian Black a couple of times. Looks good, tastes fine, works well, not expensive. There are other choices as well.

Asian Black:

{{gwi:1387387}}

The tile tastes fine? Because I always insist on tasty tile. ;-D

From the research I've been finding so far online, I'm thinking the slab with no slope is a bad idea, and a custom pan made of composite won't make the already overinflated budget. The tile you posted would be fine - the bathroom floor is white hex with a black border, shower walls are white subway, carerra door surround and corner bench. So faux slate would be perfect, thank you!!!

The only way I can see that working is with slope towards a trench drain. I think it could be a really cool look, but a maintainence nightmare unless you have that hotel cleaning staff! Take a look at the kitchen postings about black honed granite and go get a sample to live with in person before deciding.

kpaquette
where is your drain now? Centered? It's a 30"x40" space and you've "already framed, sheetrocked".

You can drain to the center with four pieces of stone. Each one is sloped to the center drain. Been done before. The preslope must be built with four planes and four seams/ plane breaks/ change of plane, and the four pieces must be cut to follow these plane break lines.

Granite slab people already know this so you won't have a hard time explaining it to them. The angles are not exaactly 90 degrees.

HTH
-david

David thank you so much. Yes, the drain is centered. The shower is framed and the board is up. Copper pan next.

How does it look installed? Googling for images has turned up nothing. I'll ask the contractor to run this buy his stone guy and see what kind of $$ we're talking.

"copper pan"

Copper pans used to be the cadillac of shower pan construction, oh, let's say...50 years ago. Problem is that the "pan", which in this case is copper, needs to be sloped.

Unfortunately most fabricators make a flat-bottomed copper pan and the only thing sloped is the mud that's packed into the pan.

That does not met code.

Honestly, you'll get better performance with a properly sloped CPE or CPVC membrane.

Are you in New England? MA? Up here is the only place where copper pans still seem to get (mis)used.

Mongo

I am also considering a trench drain on one edge of the shower with large format tiles or slab sloped to the drain.

There is very little information about this at local stores/design centers.
here is an example.

{{gwi:1387389}}

Here is a link that might be useful: trench

Yes Mongo, I AM in NE, RI to be exact. hahaha - it won't be the first time one of my contractor's subs has been questioned on his (outdated) technique. Ok. Please tell me exactly what I need to ask for. What's better of the two you listed, or should I say, what's the difference. I've renovated but this will be our first pan (last renos had tubs) so I thought copper sounded great, like gutters. ;-)

Pharoh I like the trench drain idea. Unforts we already have a center drained plumbed in this shower,though.

Did a lot of searching today and found this web site for a trench floor drain quickdrainusa.com Stainless steel channel slot shower drain can be used with any tile size and can be installed as a channel drain under the shower door or against the shower wall as a linear trench drain. It looks really nice and we will review and consider. Will also check into local codes as Mongo stated there might be some restrictions.

Here is a link that might be useful: quickdrainusa

Saftey first people:

The EMTs won't be much impressed by your slab floor while trying to manuver your nekkid hiney [complete with attached fractured femur] on to a gurney.

Just sayin.

Unfortunately most fabricators make a flat-bottomed copper pan and the only thing sloped is the mud that's packed into the pan.

That does not met code.

I did a job last fall out on Cape Cod and got into a conversation about this with the plumber. He was a good guy, and took alot of pride in his work, but there were a couple of things I questioned about his methods, and that got us around to the subject of copper pans and preslopes. I always carry a copy of the UPC and IRC codes that state that the pan liner must be sloped 1/4" per running foot from the longest point to the drain, and I showed it to him. He said that plumbers in Mass. don't follow the UPC, that they have their own code, and it's in large part because of the plumbers union. They need to be able to do things fast-- get in and get out-- and something like presloping pans on union jobs would only slow them down, so it's not part of the code. He went on to say there are MANY things about the Mass plumbing code like that that he didn't agree with, but that in order for him to be competitive, he had to abide by them. He DID say he was glad the price of copper had skyrocketed, though, because people were more and more requestion cheaper alternatives, such as Chloroloy, but the shower I was doing down there was the very first time he'd run into Kerdi.... So I gave him a CD. :-)

I know this thread is old but I'm just now getting back to considering the shower (in our total inside out top to bottom reno, tooooo much going on.)

So during this reno I've come to believe the plumber my contractor is using isn't the brightest bulb. I've met him, he's a really nice guy, but I get the impression he's been doing this for ever and ever and he's not really kept up with the times, if you know what I mean.

First of all, I should say he knew my house well since he was the plumber for the previous owner for 15 years. This is a total gut so he got to totally redo the plumbing (which was previously a hodge-podge of 150 years of plumbing technology.)

When determining the size for our new gas boiler, he didn't really do any calculations. Basically he looked at the old oil furnace and picked the equivalent - even though he knew that the house was WAY too hot with it running, since I'd called him over about it previously. Well it turned out that the furnace was twice as powerful as needed for our little 1200 sq ft house - no wonder it was so hot. Maybe 20 years ago when it was installed in the house, which at the time was not insulated, that made sense. But not now, with new insulation, weatherstripped/stormed windows. When my husband questioned him on this, his reply was "this is how I've done it for 30 years" or whatever. I guess by that he meant not bothering to check if what was there was too big and just picking the equivalent?

So the new Burnham Freedom CM boiler arrives, there is a huge delay in firing it up b/c it was missing a coil, but that took a week for the plumber to identify. When I asked why it took so long for him to get to the point where he'd noticed, I was told by my contractor that I "had to understand that this boiler is very complicated." When our electrician, who is our cousin and also used to be a plumber, wired it to the panel he didn't think it was all that complicated. Is it? Cousin also questioned the methods he was using to set it up (I'm sorry I don't remember the details but it had to do with 1 of 2 ways of doing it, and this guy was apparently doing to do BOTH.)

Now this shower pan thing. I honestly feel like I've called out this guy to my contractor so many times I'm not sure how to approach it without being insulting. (Or for the plumber not to be insulted when he hears what I want as relayed by our contractor.)

sorry that was a long rant, basically. But any tips on how to handle the shower pan tactfully would be appreciated - and also exactly what I should be asking for.

Black? Do you plan on cleaning OFTEN??? You've see soap and mineral build up on glass....imagine it on black. Not saying I've had experience, just my thoughts to consider.

I wouldn't use black honed granite there. I still think it might be slippery with no grout lines. It will show wet splotches, and will look uneven as any sealer wears off on parts that get more wear. It looks a lot darker in spots when wet, and it will look splotchy a lot of the time. I would consider porcelain tile instead there. There are lots with the same look, and no worries or sealing issues.

It's going to be sort of a charcoal gray - we're probably going with a slate-look ceramic tile like the DalTile posted above. We're off the whole granite thing, and a quote for a soapstone base (our kitchen counters will be soapstone) was way out of the budget LOL. Our friends have a chocolate brown ceramic tile shower floor and it's not an issue w/soap buildup at all, and the dark color hides a multitude of sins. ;-) This is a summer house with only this one shower and tons of guests, so I thought having a dark floor would be an advantage.

But none of this is set in stone - it's very likely we end up with white hexes with black hex flowers randomly placed. The bathroom floor will be that but with the flowers as a border - but we'll see.

I haven;t seen this thread for a while, so to answer your question about preslopes...

You're going to have something that is waterproof somewhere in your shower floor. Whatever that this is, it should be sloped between 1/4" per foot and 1/2" per foot towards the drain.

The way the slope has been traditionally made was to make it out of a lean cement mixture..."dry pack". Then a flexible membrane is placed on top of that slope, it's clamped in place at the drain, then membrane then runs to the wall/floor corners, then usually typically runs up the walls about 10" or so.

That flexible membrane can be CPVC, CPE, "chloraloy", etc. It's typically about 40 mils thick.

Once that is set in place, another layer of dry pack is placed on top of the membrane and packed into place. The tile is set on top of this second layer of mud.

An alternative to this is a foam preslope. Schluter makes them (sold in the "Kerdi" series), Wedi also makes them, as well as a few others. The foam is dense, o it doesn't compress. You set this foam pan in place, and depending on which one you choose proceed from there.

Here is a mud preslope and membrane. Credit to Harry Dunbar for that nice thread.

I had a Kerdi Shower thread up, you can try a search for that. It shows Kerdi membrane going all over the walls and floor.

If you look on the Schluter website they have photos and streaming videos of the foam preslope pans being installed.

Fire away with more questions if needed. I'll try to keep a better eye out for this thread.

Mongo

postus sctriptomonious:

Too bad about your heater being oversized. With tighter houses and better insulation, the old rules-of-thumb don;t apply anymore. An oversized unit will short cycle, making it less efficient. It can even shorten the lifespan of the unit.