Unless perfectly done, shower pans have quite a reputation for eventually leaking. I say eventually because it is long after you can call back your contractor to fix it at no cost. The most important elements are a rubber membrane and the drain made to go with it.

Eventual leaking is your major concern here, not cosmetics. If you do not know if you have both the membrane and the appropriate drain, have them rip it up and start over.

If you know they installed both, you can fill the crack with epoxy and live with the cosmetic crack. It could get worse over time however, because moisture makes things move.

The crack is unacceptable, and you should demand that it be re-done. I understand about the baby, but my feeling is you will rue the day if you accept it as is.

Just google 'shower pan' and you'll get lots of horror stories.

Here is a link that might be useful: Membrane/drain example

Clarion, thanks for your response. The shower pan was wet-mopped, but the contractor put in a plain old drain that was not anything near as elegant a solution as the one in that link (I was actually fairly frustrated with the drain he chose, but it was too late as everything had been wet-mopped in place and was ready for the soapstone install). To make things worse, the soapstone installers (according to my contractor) scraped up the tar a bit on the shower pan a bit while putting that heavy piece in place. He water tested it and it held water after the install. I do not feel great about the whole situation.

Do I get a plumber to come in and do an inspection for a second opinion?

The problem with bad shower pan installs is that they usually pass the waterproof test initially, but water migrates and they EVENTUALLY leak. I know all this because we had one done without the membrane/drain system, and 3 or 4 years later we had to jack hammer up the whole thing due to leaking, which was no fun at all and expensive.

I would demand it be re-done due to the crack in the stone. Then you can have them do it right.

More info and some pictures posted on my other link. See below.

This is getting frustrating. Because I had a contractor, but got the soapstone installer myself, they will probably try to blame each other. Both dropped the ball on getting this thing in right.

Here is a link that might be useful: Original post about soapstone shower base crack.

I am a fabricator.

I would reject this completely. It's the contractors problem. Hopefully you haven't paid him in full and you shouldn't until this is fixed.

oldryder, just a question. If the soapstone fabricator didn't tell my contractor ahead of time what was necessary for a proper install, don't you think there is blame to go around? I do know they talked on the phone once, but being a non-expert, I wasn't completely familiar with what they had communicated at the time.

I got in touch with the fabricator and they finally came out. They are trying to seal the crack today with Wood & Stone Acrylic Penetrating Crack Filler. They are in the sanding stage now, so we'll see how it ends up. I'm skeptical. Originally tried to put blame on someone "stepping" on the stone before the thinset was dry. That didn't happen as no work was begun on the rest of the shower until after several days. Also, I discovered the crack was visible right after the install and saw some pics my contractor had taken (no one noticed it at the time).

"oldryder, just a question. If the soapstone fabricator didn't tell my contractor ahead of time what was necessary for a proper install, don't you think there is blame to go around?"

Yes. However, your fabricator should have held up the install and got any deficiency remedied if that was necessary for a quality install job. We occasionally have to call a cabinet shop and have them reset their cabinets before we can install tops because cabinets are so far off level. You can't do a good install over screwed up substrate, whatever it is.