How on earth do I deal with the flange on the shower surround?

[Friday]

Hi all. I'm trying to remodel my kids' bathroom.Backstory: this past Spring, I paid a company with good reviews to come out and replace the old tub/shower with a new one. I wound up underwhelmed because of this:



Currently, I'm in the thick of a portion of the project with the end goal of laying tile a bit over midway up the bathroom walls, putting some accent tile above and around the shower enclosure, and then tiling the floor. I am stuck! What I want to do is to put mosaic tile as the accent tile around the shower, but I've got this mess going on with the shower flange. The shower surround is a Sterling by Kohler something-or-another, and the flange extends 1.25" and is roughly 3/32" thick. The Hardiebacker I'm using is a half-inch thick and then there's the original drywall abutting it. I wanted to retain as much drywall as possible above the shower because I didn't want to mess with the corners at the ceiling and really just wanted to use tile as an accent in that location. However, I've got serious unevenness (thickness) problems between the drywall, the Hardiebacker, and the shower flange. In addition, I've discovered that when the new tub was installed, gaps were left between the wall studs and some of the flange edges (no shims). (We're talking 1/4" gaps.) How on earth do I deal with this in order to accomplish my tiling goal? I've been researching online and have not yet found a solution. I'm hopefully successfully attaching some photos to try and illustrate the situation. Please help, I'm at a standstill!

 

[Jadnashua]

First, what are you planning for water management? There are two acceptable ways, put a moisture barrier behind the cement board, or put one on top of it. It does not appear that you have one behind (cbu, cement board, is not waterproof, but is not damaged by being wet - for that matter, tile nor grout is waterproof, either!). That leaves you a couple of choices if you don't' want to remove the cbu and install one. There are topical, paint-on waterproofing materials, and there are waterproof membranes (I prefer those - two examples are Kerdi or Hydroban sheet). If you put one behind the cbu, you'd lap it over the flange towards the inside of the tub. If you go with a topical waterproofing, you'd need to get some waterproof banding material, and seal it to the flange and attach it to the cbu. A really good, permanent sealant is KerdiFix. As long as more than 1/2 of the tile will be on the cbu, it can cantilever the flange - put thinset there to help support it as well as on the cbu. Leave a small gap at the bottom and caulk it or (my preference) use an engineered expansion joint there and in the corners. Industry standards call for all changes of plane and materials to have an expansion joint. A really good forum for tiling help is www.johnbridge.com

Note, if you use a topical liquid waterproofing, you need to use the alkali-resistant tape and thinset the seams prior to painting them. IF you use a sheet membrane, the membrane itself will act like that reinforcement.

 

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[Terry]

The tub and walls are in place, and you're wanting to trim out where the enclousure meets the existing walls?
If any shimming needs to be done first, you can unscrew what is near the tub parts and shim, then replace the drywall sections. I don't think you need to worry about water above the enclosure. You can straighten out the wall some with mud though before tiling.

As for the tub spout, if you have room behind the valve, like in the next room, you may be able to raise the spout high enough that the tub spout clears the bump of the tub.