Code requirement for custom shower drain?

[Stealthfox]

Hello all, i'm a tile contractor looking at a custom walk in shower, the size of the shower pan is approx. 8.5 ft wide by 3.5 deep, with a showerhead on each side of the short walls

local plumber tells me you need (2) 2" pvc drains for this setup, HOWEVER because this is a handicapped accessible shower the customer has already lowered the subfloor under the shower area so that the finished mortar bed height is equal to the rest of the floor.....no curb, and wheelchair rolls right in

the lowered floor means some sistered joists, and this takes up the needed room for 2 drains.....sooo the plumber says we need (1) 3" drain instead

1) is this correct, i live in the st. louis mo area if that makes any difference
2) my real problem is that as the tile contractor i want to use a shower waterproofing system made by Schluter Systems called "KERDI" and they make their own drain to fit their waterproofing membrane, and it only comes in 1 size of course, the standard 2 inch....i don't know if there is a way to modify a standard 3" drain but maybe some of y'all might know about that??

[jadnashua]

Kerdi is good stuff, but like any typical shower drain, it is designed for 2". I'm not a pro, but I don't see any good reason why you'd need two drains with only two showerheads...people get buy with 4-5 or more with only one. I loaned my TDNA handbook to someone so I can't see if they require two because of the size of the room, not the quantity of the heads. Have you checked with the inspector? The plumber might be right on, or he could be blowing smoke.

Schluter talked about maybe making a trench drain, which might work for you. You might want to ask (I don't remember it in the catalog, but sometimes they have some things that aren't), but absolutely no guarantees.

[jimbo]

This raises a very interesting question.... I believe the code for a 2" shower drain was written with the assumption that everyone had 1 showerhead! I can see that a "thinking" inspector might add up ALL the available heads in a shower and base a drain requirements on perceived maximum input?

[geniescience]

fight code with code. you are going to have to know more about code than the plumber is expecting you to know, to get him to back off.

i think your plumber is thinking the floor surface area or the TWO showerheads now makes it bigger than ONE shower, so he concludes it needs a bigger drain.

he is wrong.


david

[Cass]

Ask him to show you in his code book the requirement for the 3" drain.

If he doesn't, go with the 2" drain and be done with it.

[Stealthfox]

contacted the local county inspector and he said the plumber was "dead wrong"......nuff said

1 drain, 2" pipe thats all ya need ....i'm relieved

[palmstate]

Are there going to be any body spays as well. He could also be recommending two drains since there is no curb the two heads could put out more flow than the one drain could keep up with.

[johnfrwhipple]

ACO makes a custom linear drain with a bondable surface flange that you can tie into with Kerdi or Kerdi DS. The linear drain can come with 1, 2 or 3 - 2" outlets if the need arises in the future.



You can see all the custom options you have. The flange on this ACO drain is designed so that products like Kerdi or Kerdi DS can be bonded to it with Schluter's Kerdi Fix. More detail here on ACO's web page.

Also if you entertain the idea of a hybrid system a Noble Flex Flashing from Noble Company can tie into any clamping drain and offer up a nice wide bondable surface to seam the Kerdi to. We recently used some Noble Deck and seamed some Kerdi DS to it for a custom trench install we did in Coquitlam.

Many ways to build these showers.

Schluter also makes a conversion drain I believe in the 3" size to convert many clamping drains into a Kerdi style drain.

So many options. JW