I would discourage you from using slate in a shower. It's a very porous material and requires plenty of maintenance. If you think cleaning soap scum off a glass door is hard...try slate. Sure, you can seal it...but you'll be doing it quite often and it'll still be a pain.

I suggest you look at some of the better porcelain tiles. You can find them that look very much like slate, but requite no sealing and are far easier to keep clean.

Also, in ANY shower, I discourage using bar soap...most have animal fat as a "binder" and this is what causes most of the scum. Limit yourself to liquid soap, dry the shower after use and it will look like new forever.

I wanted slate-look in a heavy-use mudroom and found some great tile that was bullet-proof. Also, wouldn't using slate (or any slab-stone) require you to beef up your floor support?

Would you accept a recommendation?

Take a peak at DAL's Continental Slate.

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It's a porcelain with a slate pattern.

The stuff looks pretty darn good, I've used a couple of the colors. It's a good quality tile, the pattern isn't repetitive enough for it to be apparent in a bathroom sized installation, and it's quite affordable.

I've had a couple folk buy this at HD during their flooring sales, I think they paid maybe $3-$4 a foot.

Mongo

I have slate on the walls in my shower - not the floor and it is no problem at all. I love it. I do not, however, use bar soap, so perhaps that has something to do with it. But I would not hesitate to use it again. Sorry I don't have pictures - am waiting for a new battery for my camera :-(

Anyone else out there with slate showers?--opinions?--would you do it again?--do you have to squeegee it after use?

Thank you!

DON'T DO IT!!!

We just remodeled our Master Bath that we had remodeled several years ago with slate on the counters, the floors, the shower and the tub surround. I hated it, hated it, hated it. It is so porous. You have to seal it regularly and even then, it still shows water deposits. Mine even began to crumble on the step of the shower because it absorbed the water and the layers just flaked off.

The floor was actually pretty and I still have it on the floor in another bathroom and my laundry room. It was beautiful everywhere I had it, but not a very durable choice for the shower.

I now have travertine on the floors and shower and granite on the counters and love it.

I had my entire master bath done in "copper" slate and outside of some calcium buildup in spots on the shower floor, I have had no problems. I squeegie/sponge dry the shower after each use. I have heard there are different "grades" of slate and the ones from China/India are apparently softer.

We have slate in the shower and love it. I need to post some pix, cuz I think it looks so pretty. Our tile guy said as long as its sealed properly, you won't have a problem.

Trudymom - here are some pix of our slate shower we just did.

Here is a link that might be useful: Master Shower

It's not just a matter of different grades of slate, but of different varieties. Talk to your tile pro, they can stear you towards a stone with minimum flaking.

I was really dissapointed with the Daltile Continetal in green. The other colors may be better.

Mannington's 'Botticelli' is a better color, though less textured. Also a solid body. About the same price, but very limited sizes.

The best porcelain slate I found in my considerable search was Surface Art's Canyon Slate in musk. It's a bit more olive than slate color, with good color variation, though [sadly] a limited number of texture imprints per size.

Surface art imports tile from all over, rebrands it. Good stuff for the most part, but can be hard to find and their website sux. I also found this tile minus the Surface arts name at a wholesale tile place. It was still called 'Musk', though.

We put in a very beautiful slate shower. What can I use to dininfect it? I am hesitant to use anything with bleach because I don't want to discolor it.
Thanks

Does anyone have suggestions on how to clean a copper slate shower with much soap scum?