How to install Mud in a shower floor
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2013
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How to install mud in a shower pan for a tile shower stall. When installing a tile shower, whether it be ceramic, marble travertine or any other tile product, a mud base will be required. Mud also known as deck mud, is a mixture of sand and Portland cement mixed to a ratio that will create a solid foundation for the tile which will be installed on it. The deck mud is mixed with water to a dump consistence which will allow the deck mud to hold its shape when pressed into a ball. The mud must be pitcher towards the drain so that a slope of at least 1|4" per foot is achieved. The ratio of sand and Portland cement is usually 4:1 or 5:1. I usually use "Quikrete" sand topping mix, which as far as I know, has a ratio which is a little richer than needed, but is suitable for a shower pan. The method I employ to install my mud shower pan, is to create a level and flat perimeter around the base of the shower walls which is at the correct height in relation to the drain, and then fill the middle part of the shower pan screeding down to the drain with the proper pitch. The mud is shaped with a wooden trowel, steel trowel, level and other pieces of straight wood lengths cut to the required lengths. In this video I demonstrate the technique I use to install a shower mud pan base. There are other methods that can be used, but this is the way I have installed hundreds of shower bases.
All tile installed by Sal DiBlasi, Elite-tile Company, in the Boston North Shore area. This video contains affiliate links, which means I will receive a small commission if you click on the product link.
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I'm 27 yrs old and I'm really into home renovations. I have to say most of your videos, You have done each step properly and done it as it was your own. I really do hope to maintain my quality in any work I do. step by step process. the way you've shown in all your videos. good job
That is good to hear, there are too many installers that just wing it and don't follow proper methods and standards. Being young as you are with an attitude like that you are bond to succeed. You should look into the TCNA www.tcnatile.com/products-and-services/publications/218-english-publications/188-handbook/934-2016-tcna-handbook-for-ceramic-glass-and-stone-tile-installation.html and the NTCA tile-assn.site-ym.com/ if you do a Schluter class they will givee you a TCNA handbook free along with a bunch of other stuff and most importantly; knowledge.
Thanks greatly for your advise. Concrete and I have never been friends, but using your technique of the level towers and "just damp" mud, I did my 5.5X5.5 shower base successfully. My drain was in one corner so I had two level walls and two that angled down, but following your guidance worked beautifully.
Thanks for your videos Sal. My first time doing a pre-slope and mortar bed. Your method worked great for me, but I have to say, you make it look pretty easy. That was work! Thanks again.
Ken Nelson storm door.
I love these videos especially when you speed it up! I like the scratching sound of the tools in high speed! BTW you are very knowledgeable!
Thanks Sal.. I'm attempting a new shower pan and just wanted to be clear on the proper procedure. I appreciate your time in answering my questions... Love your channel!
This is a very useful video for me. I'm installing a tiled shower in my house to the west of Boston. The plumbing inspector told me that I had to use a copper pan liner. It took me a long time to figure out how to do this with a pre-slope! I have the cement board inside the liner, just like you, but it's all covered with Red Guard so that the moisture barrier is on the INSIDE, not behind the wall finish. A lot of sources say that the mud base has to be 2 to 3 inches thick, but I have just 1 3/4 inches from the top surface of the liner to the bottom row of wall tiles, so I want it to be much thinner and I'm encouraged to see that you're putting down only a little more than an inch in this shower.
Boston is the last bastion of the copper pan, I am just North of Boston. If copper pans would go away all together it would actually be a good thing. I have had to deal with them for more than 30 years and I only accept them these days when I have no other choice, I would much prefer, and mostly do, sealed showers systems these days.
Thanks for the help Sal. I just completed my master bath restoration. I stripped everything to the framing and went from there. I ended up with a beautiful 30”x48” walk-in shower and beautiful tile floors. I’ve worked in carpentry for years but never did tile work before. I wish I could share pictures here. Your videos guided me to a beautiful and leak free finished product. Thanks again
Nice to hear, enjoy your new bathroom.
thank you for these lessons Sal, im doing my first shower and Im setting the pan liner tomorrow and I was going to pour the concrete and i just noticed the durock and waterproofing is done first before concrete.
Man this was so extremely helpful. You missed nothing out. Now I can be confident in my mud pan! Thanks
These are great videos! Very helpful commentary and awesome start to finish demonstration. Thank you taking the time to share!
Been an assistant for a tile guy for almost 3 years..this is high level stuff.Very informative.Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
Glad I could help, I will soon be doing another video showing a second way that I use to do the pans.
Thanks for walking us through and detailing what you are doing and WHY...cheers
Sir I appreciate your your time for this video and it looks good job now learning a lot thank you so much
This is gold , thanks for posting have done lots of tile but doing my first shower pan for brother in law. You make things clear and very easy to understand. Thanks again
If you are interested I also have another video with a slightly different method. How to install mud in a shower floor Method 2
Sal, your Da'Man! Thanks for the great vids!!!!
Excellent video! I have viewed a lot of videos on this subject and yours is REALLY done correctly!
Great video, Sal. I'm about to do my first mud pan and this is exactly the level of detail I needed. You gave a lot of really good tips that I will certainly take advantage of. Thanks!
Major help for my project! Many thanks for your efforts on the video!
Thank you Sal for an excellent tutorial. I hope my first and probably only shower install goes as smoothly.
Good luck!
Nice job Sal , that's the only way to do it . Never mind all those fancy plastic pre pitched systems ,they just don't give you the satisfaction of a job well done.
Pre pitched such as quick pitch are great if your not comfortabel with dong traditional dry pack. But you must watch out if the drain isnt center or the showee os an irregular shae the lenght of pitch stick will be different giving you an un level perineter that will have all angle cuts wher wall meets the floor. I find that the installations doesnt look very good and its all due to the mud job .
Hi Sal. I just want to say thanks for all the advise. The second time round, the topper mix went perfectly. Used the additive with water. Thanks again. Matt
Hey Mattt............. did you use water with the additive? I used straight additive in place of the water and it seemed difficult to finish. Did you tear it out after the first time?
@@keithowens9242 Hi keith. Yes I used a small amount of additive with the water. The first time I used sac crete and I didn't get a good curing. So I took it out and went with quick crete topper mix. Came out great. Not saying anything bad about sac crete but I didn't have good luck with it. Watch Sal Dablasi of elite tile. He gave me great advise. Good luck.👍
Thanks Sal, your videos are the ones I follow! Very informative! Thanks!
What a great video. I feel semi confident I can pull this off!
lol...
Thanks for sharing your expertise!
Thanks for these videos. I did the pre-slope today, and it's not as easy as you make it look.
LOL
It rarely is--10,000 hours makes a pro. I'm chuckling because tomorrow it will be me finding out that Sal makes it look easier than it will be for an amateur.
Lol
Sal makes everything look easy!
You link one video with another, the circle drain then the square drain , I like what I see, thank you for good lesson 🙏
You are welcome!
Great job very informative Thank You
Thanks Sal, good stuff.
Great video, the best example I've seen.
That depends on the kind of backer you use, but generally when I install the backer I don't let it sit on the pan at all, The backer should not touch the pan, so there would be no point to caulking it. Also I usually waterproof the mud and lower part of the walls (if I don't waterproof the whole thing) to minimize or eliminate water penetrating into the pan.
Just jack hammered out a mud bass that had the backer into the base like this. The backer board was all rotted out. Should be above the mud.
waao i have 12 year of experince and every day can learn something more littlebe diferent but the same i like your videos thanks you .rigth now im working in arkansas and they work little be diferent
It could be very helpful for us (watchers) if you show us how to build a curb. I mean full process wood, liner, durack,mud around.
Thank you for your lessons.
I will see what I can do.
Your curb looks so nice compare to mine:)))))
Interesting to see someone else's way of installing a mud pan. I'm from the NJ/NY area. I mix it until I can make a "meatball", then I know it's good to go. I make "ribbons" which means that I compact the mud completely around before I get started on the rest of the pan. Never used gravel by the weeping holes though. I'd like to try it, but I don't want to experiment on a client's house. Very nice job. Also, your liner corners are perfect, no lumping out. Good plumber, or good tile man.
You should watch this, ua-cam.com/video/p8xsx3316IU/v-deo.html
I also enjoyed the video. I've made about a dozen showers using roughly this technique. I did not approach the quality that Sal showed in this video on my first few. Even now I take considerably longer than Sal does and I certainly learned a few things from this video. One thing I do that wouldn't help Sal much but might be of use to a less experienced person is to use a laser level to place check marks around the perimeter to mark the correct level. I make the curb at the same time I do pan.
Sal, nice work, Sir.
The man is a master.
hey im just messing with you bro im 40 yrs old now ive been around this all my life since 1983 u do good work I like your style
Great video Sal
Finally old school way this exactly how I do them never a problem or call back
Thank you.
excellent work and video.
Boy does that bring back memories. I'm sore just watching lol.
😊👍
thank you Sal DiBlasi that the only ways I think it's the Best Way #1 Mix is OnlyDamp and that is easy to level them right way. most people mix to wet so the got trouble to level and got so messy. Thank YOu So much making this video . you are the best .
Glad I could help.
Hey Sal from one contractor to another your brilliant.
Takes a brilliant contractor to recognize that. 😋
Yes you can, use some kind of bonding agent a little thinset will work. A membrane may be required depending on the condition of the slab and intended use of the deck mud that you are going to install.
Great videos. You are very good and I learned I lot of good tips. Subscribed.
Thank again Sal.
Man you make this look easy! It's definitely not, I struggled getting mine level on all four corners. I wish I had added more water as well. Great work!
great job !!!!
Enjoy your videos and work Sal, question regarding the curb; after the floor has been presloped and the vinyl liner has been laid, how are you placing the "inside wall" of the curb so as to not puncture the vinyl. Is liquid nails ok, or even thin set?
thanks again.
glad i could help
i think you should look for new invention on the DIY i use to do it like you back in the days when i start but every job i did i looked for a easy and faster way to do it and dont get me wrong i like it the way you do it too:) good luck
Sal, thanks for all the great videos. Just did my first pan and got a ton of help from this one. Quick question: should I waterproof the pan (with redguard or aquadefense or something)?
I agree with you, but that all depends on whether there is a vapor barrier behind the backer board or not. In this case i did not install the Durock and the GC put up a vapor barrier before installing the CBU. I don't always have control of how things are done. If you watch a few of my other videos , you will see in most cases i do waterproof the entire surface of the CBU, which i think is the prefered method
Okay, confession time. I think I put in too much Portland cement, which I read was good for the mix with the sand topping.
I took out the old. It was exactly soft as pie crust, but it did chunk out in 20 minutes.
I cleaned up and redid it in sand topping only. You were right, the second time was way easier.
Thanks you are awesome
@MrVidproduct Yes you need a pre-slope under the liner, I also have a video of that.
Sal, thanks for taking the time to make a video, it is very thorough. If I could ask one question regarding the curb I would appreciate if you could clarify a detail. Does the curb need to go from the plate/wall to plate/wall or do you leave a half inch on either side for the backerboard?
Thanks for the videos Sal. I cant tell you how much they've helped. How log should I wait after forming my mud shower floor prior to painting one of the Waterproof membranes on it?Thanks.
Nice video, Sal. One small note, you used regular sharp gravel for weep hole drainage. Pea gravel is required so the sharp edges don't puncture the liner. :)
You ared absolutely correct about that, at the time that I did this install the gravel you see is what I had available to me, I did look at it carefully because that thought had occured to me. I decided that this gravel did not have anything that would be a concern. Sometime I will used some old spacers instead.
The laser is a nice tip for a novice, or even a level line made with an old fashioned bubble level could be of help.
You are the man Sal!...But I'm kind of surprised that your walls are not Mortar also..
@Amit Shah Exactly, i outlined how to do a pre-slope in another video.
@k crofoot yes it will dry hard as a rock, and yes you can set your tile on it.
Hello Sal. Great video series. I've been watching them for a couple weeks now. I'm getting ready to attempt my first shower pan. What is your take on adding Quikrete Acrylic Fortifier to the Quikrete Sand/Topping mix? Is it beneficial, or completely unnecessary?
Great video, doing my second bath using your methods, first was a tub... What is min thickness for this mud bed on the liner? I would like to do walk out but already 1" up from concrete and want to match my bedroom floor to bath in the future... trying to not be 2.5" up through the rest of the house... maybe curb is best bet?
Thank you
@piero serrano Indid not forget it, it is not required nor is it recommended. the purpose of the liner is to direct any water that gets through the mud to the weep holes at the drain. bonding the mud to the liner will only inhibit that function. I also find it doubtful that the thinset would actually stick to the liner.
I've always used diamond wire "no nails" and fat mud on the first 6" of the walls. deck mud on the floor. Doing the bottom 6" of the wall first then the floor the next day.
Video is ver informative. Only thing is you have to pre-pitch the pan first, then put the shower liner and then final mud bed for tiling. Thank you.
Question!!?? Since I have to tear up my floor to lower it anyhow can I make the preslope pitch built in the subfloor? Fab the floor joist so when I put plywood down it is sloped to drain Then all I should have to do is put vinyl liner down and then one layer of mud for tile
My understanding is the dura rock or cement board is suppose to end above the pan I saw a video where the guy tore open a shower that failed and the dura rock was wicking water up rotting out the studs behind it. I plan on using redguard for my pan liner and also on the studs around the shower. Also, when I had the plumber put in the drain he was suppose to center it. It is a 5x5 shower. However I noticed he did not allow for the curb width, in other words the drain is about 4" off center. Is this going to be a big problem when I put in the preslope?
First pre-slope, (see video on that) then rubber membrane (see video on that), and then the mud as shown in this video. I have a ton of videos, many of them show some waterproofing, but not one specific to that
What are you using for a pan liner.
nice work, and thank you for keeping the crack hidden lol.
I am not a Plumber!
I am curious, is it really necessary to staple the wire lath down and if so how often should it be stapled and how big a staple? How close do you fit the wire lath to the walls? Do you leave some space or do you butt the lathe against the wall? Also is there anything wrong with using self-furring wire lath.
Sal, great video! I am about to do my first ever shower and your videos are the best. One question: When you still work on the mud making sure that the tile is level with the drain do you also account for the height that the tile thinset will add? In the video it looks like you just make the tile and the drain perfectly leveled. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for advise 'Invaluable
There are a lot of options for a pan liner, I would suggest that you determine what is the norm in your area, Maybe you can look into A Schluter Kerdi Shower system.
I did a "Hot Mop"
H.B. California 👍
Hey Sal, I know this is a really old video and you've done many many more since then and I will look for your others later, but I just have a question ... what systems do you recommend today where you can do your shower pans without mudding it ? I'm sure you can install a shower without the mudding system, so I wanted to ask your advice or even suggest one of your videos in particular where you did such a thing.
Thanks again Sal ... I think I will go your site to buy some tile tools etc.... 😁👍🏽
Hello Sal, your tile guy did good job, must be mexican ha!! he know wath is doing!!!
Thanks for these videos and looking forward to you coming to see what you can do for our project. One question: if you have 1/4' per foot slope, and you have a level perimeter, what happens with a rectangle? What happens if you measure from the corner to the drain? How is it that it all comes out to 1/4" per 1' ?
+Dan Albert The 1/4" per foot is from the furthest wall, the shorter distances will be at a steeper slope, Minimum needs to be about 1/4".
Nice
Great video thanks so much. How long does the mud need to dry before you can proceed with tiling?
Hi Sal. Thanks for all the help you're given me! On my top layer of mud, I goofed and set my drain a little too low. I had to do a little grinding around the drain with my cement disk on a grinder so I could unscrew it. The cuts were about 1/4" deep and were right up against the plastic (square Oatey drain). Can I fill these depressions in with thinset, or should I mix up a small amount of sand/portland cement to fill them in up to the proper level? I like the idea of packing them in with sand/portland cement but will it bond to mud that has set up? Thanks again!
Thinset i think would be the better choice, so tgat it will adhere to the existing cement.
***** That sounds good. I'll even things up with some twinset. It's not a big volume that I had to remove. Thanks for all of your help!
How do you attach the Durock to the interior side of the curb? Thanks.
Hi Sal! I got a question for you. I'm installing a new bathroom putting in a 30 x 60 prefab shower pan. My bathroom floor is completely flat but on a VERY slight incline. I need to level my pan which would be a 1/4" off level otherwise. Do I need to use floor leveler for the pan or can I just use mortar mix under the pan when installing to level it ? The manufacturer says to use the mortar mix but the guy at the company says I should level the area where the pan is going first. I know I don't need to level the whole floor! What do I do?
I repair a lot of bad tile jobs especially when it comes to shower pans.More up and coming tile setters should watch your videos .you should make a video about overlapping the tile in the pan not underlapping
Thanks
Mosaic will gain very little height when the thinset is added, the tile can be very slightly above the drain, or some times I will shave a little off the back of the tile to make it fit right, some times the drain can be adjusted up before the mud sets, some times the drain can be adjusted after the mud has set. I usually plan how I am going to handle it depending on the size and kind of tile. Whatever works to get the tile to be at the right height with the drain.
Can somebody please help. Do you slope before you put the shower pan liner ? Or lay it straight on the foundation floor then liner and then mud it ?
My grate that screws into the base seems too loose …is it meant to be loose because it’s square or should I use some Teflon tape or pipe dope?
Thank you for the video!
I have few questions; what is the hight would you recommend to leave for the drainage before putting mud in? Second, should I use water proving system before or after putting mud? And finally, I have 5' by 10' shower so I'm planning raise my perimeter for a pitch 1.25 inches; do you think it is enough? Or what would you recommend?
Sal, Thanks for taking the time to teach us all how to set a shower pan. One question. If floating the walls instead of concrete board would you do the pan and then the float or float first?
Walls first, but if you have never floated walls, you might be taking on more than you might think.
The rubber liner is the gray thing with the writing and the lines on it. you can spray water if you like but it is not necessary, the mud will set if it is mixed correctly.
Sal, thanks so much for taking the time to make these videos, I've learned so much from watching you. I am in the process of making my bed on top of the rubber membrane. I got all the mud in and let it set over night and when I checked it the next day the top of it is still pretty sandy and I could actually make marks in it. I think I mixed it too dry, is there any way to correct this? I sprayed some water on the top with a spray bottle hoping to engage the cement to harden it but it's still gritty. What should I do? Add a thin layer of wetter sand topping mix to what is there or add a thin layer of thinset over it?
I have heard this countless times from people who have the same problem the first time doing it, so don't feel bad. My advice is start over, you want to get the base right, think of it as a practice run. The good news is that it should be easy to remove, next time make sure it is damp enough and that you pack it down really well.
sal is the dura rock below the pan , some people say that the durarock should be above pan about 1/2 inch
Well I just realized where I saw it done that way. I though it makes sense to have the rock in the pan because the pan will hold the rock up against the studs, since you can't put screws that low. Otherwise it wobbles a littl I already planned on using a lot or red guard but if water does soak into the pan it will likely affect the rock. not real a good thing.
dugh rock is for those who cant float! Put that on a out of plumb wall....and its still out of plumb! Gonna have to show you how REAL TILE SETTERS do it.
yeagermeister63 where is your wall floating video? I’m going to beat you to it!
Excellence
Yes, that Is what i Believe it to be. It is a little rich, but works fine for a shower pan. Deck mud is supposed To be 5:1, you could always add some sand If you want to increase the ratio of sand, i will some times do that If i need It to be a Little leaner.