Fibreglass Shower pan ick!

Shower Pan, How to??

Hi,
I'm more comfortable with a PC then a shower pan. My fibreglass shower pan seems to be leaking at the drain fittings. I have a concrete foundation and need advice to fix the leak. Water is seeping out from under the pan and soaking the base boards. Can I replace the drain fittings? Or should I plan to tear it out and replace. ( with tile!!!!) It's quite gross since I now have tiny little bugs that crawl out from under the trim and base boards.

Any advice will be welcome....
Thanks
Patrick

100% removal

pcanonge said:

.... leaking at the drain fittings. .... replace the drain fittings? Or should I plan to tear it out and replace. ....

Click to expand...

let me be the first to tell you. Bugs will not go away unless you remove them. So, if you need to be told, I'll tell you: your only option is " tear it all out". No "replacing fittings" or "repairing". Rip it all out and fast. The H20 leak is feeding the bugs growth, so their territory is expanding every minute. Bugs, like mold, need adequate moisture and a food source. Any organic matter may be food to bugs or mold. Water (moisture, humidity) is the limiting factor.

You will have to rebuild a shower once you rip it all out and let the remaining part of your house dry out. Let me be the first to congratulate you on doing so.

david

while you demolish and vacuum

Patrick,

I realize you are quite busy removing wet wood and vacuuming up bugs.

Once you get back to posting here, people will refer you to some good shower building resources. With a concrete slab under the shower, you have a lot more options that you would if the subfloor was made of wood on joists.

If anyone tells you to use "deck mud" they are thinking of one way of building shower floors that is recommended for wood subfloors on joists. You don't need that. It would raise the level of your floor unnecessarily. On concrete it has no purpose.

If anyone tells you to use an orange membrane that you can buy at an orange logo store, they are thinking of one way of building showers. There are several ways to build a waterproof shower.

David

To build a code-compliant shower, the waterproofing must be on a sloped bed. Tile is not considered a waterproof bed, nor is your existing concrete slab. there are various ways to generate that sloped bed with deck mud being one of the cheapest and easiest - think of wet sand at the beach that stays where you put it and doesn't wash away in the next wave. There are various manufactured shower pans that can be used - some can be tiled, but they tend to be much more expensive than simple deck mud (5- parts sand to 1-part Portland cement and enough water to make it ball together when squeezed).

It sounds like yours has been leaking for awhile. You might have some extensive carpenter ant or termite damage as the result of the moisture. You need to assess what's going on, and once you have it out, you have all sorts of choices on how to replace it with something that doesn't leak.

slope is necessary. Water only flows downhill. Cement and sand mixed together can make a sloped shower floor on the slab. On top of the slope, you then need one of the various waterproofing membranes. Then you can tile that.

david