Shower drain placement

Hi,
Is it alright to locate a tiled shower pan drain way off-center? I have a 36"x60" space for a shower, and in order to not cut into the joists below, the drain can only be about 10 inches from the back 60" wall. Will that be OK?

Thanks,
Hazel

You can put the drain wherever you want, but it just makes it a little harder to install the pan and finished tile. In your situation, the short area behind the drain will have a steep pitch for a shower, but if you are ok with that then don't worry about it.

Read johnbridge.com. They'll make you an expert on shower construction.

The shower drain can be wherever you want it to be as long as all sides of the floor slope down to the drain. Is this shower replacing a tub? If yes, then they make pre-sloped trays/pans that you can drop in. But from what I read on JB, doing a 'mud' floor can be quite doable....

The problem is this...if you don't make the floor edges even all of the way around, it just looks lousy. You need 1/4" per foot from the longest distance. In your case that is 50", or just over 4'. That equals just over 1". If the walls are all ending at the same height over the pan, in 10" you need to drop 1", so that can be quite steep. If the showerhead is near that end, you may not be standing on that part of the shower, so you might not care. That is half the slope you'll need from the narrow sides to the shower. Your call...

one other floor slope option

All three answers above are correct.

If I understand your situation, your drain is 10" from the wall. The steep pitch between the drain and the closest wall is for your wall tiles to all be the same size, including the bottom row. Ptherwise there is no reason to do this. No technical reason.

You could choose to disregard this "need" to have a level bottom wall tile all around the bottom edge everywhere, and instead just build a lesser pitch on the short end. This would make your bottom wall tile longer there than at the far end. It would also make the bottom wall tiles on both of the long "side" walls gradually slope longer and longer along with the floor slope. Your call.

David