Constructing a curbless shower questions

[ArashM]

I have a old shower hob where the curbs are made of bricks.

the shower is too small, so i've decided to remove the curbs and make a curbless shower. 

the shower floor already sloped, so I'm not gonna dig into concrete floor and build a sloped pan.

I'm just gonna remove the curbs and the floor tile, prime it, put waterproofing membrane and install new tiles.

i've figured all the parts out except that i have no idea how to remove the curb.

i've remove the tiling on the curb, but the curb looks to be made of bricks attached to concrete floor and glued together with mortar.

I've been working with chisel and hammer but removing the mortar was best i could do.

could you please suggest a method or a tool (non expensive preferred) I could use to remove the bricks and reach the concrete floor?

Thank you

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @ArashM. It's fantastic to have you join us and many thanks for your question.

I believe the bricks will be bedded on top of cement. You should be able to take a Craftright 1.35kg Club Hammer and knock them straight off. The rubber mallet is not very effective at this as it is absorbing most of your force. You need sharp impacts to the brick to fracture the cement bond with them, the steel club hammer is much more effective at this.

You'll most likely need a grinder for this job as it will come in handy for smoothing off any bricks or tiles you can't fully remove. Depending on the number of tiles you need to remove an Ozito 900W SDS+ 3J Rotary Hammer Drill Kit would also be helpful.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or had questions.

Mitchell

[ArashM]

Hi Mitchell,

Thank you for responding to my enquiry.

I was using the rubber mallet to minimise the noise for neighbours but I believe you are correct.

Thank you for your advice.

[ArashM]

Hi,

Is there a method/product I can use to raise the shower drain by about 1cm.

I'm planning to retile my bathroom/shower floor using tile over tile method. The grout plus tile thickness would require the drain to be raised by about 1cm or less. 

I would also prefer to replace drain cover with a new one. 

What products is best to use for this?

Thank you in advance

[MitchellMc]

Hi @ArashM,

I've enquired with a few of our plumbing experts instore to see if there is a product suitable for raising a shower drain. Unfortunately, the response I am receiving is that this is something a plumber would specialise in. They will either tell you that they need to cut the drain out and install a new one at the correct height or they might be willing to cobble an adaptor together. There is no product I can suggest that will simply adapt to the current drain and allow you to install a new one over the top.

Let me mention some of our keen D.I.Y. enthusiasts @TedBear, @Walzz, @Kermit and @Stuardo to see if they would like to join the conversation.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or had questions.

Mitchell

[ArashM]

Hi @MitchellMc 

I followed your advice and bought a rotary hammer drill. Once i emptied 1cm around the curbs down to the cement attachment under the bricks, slight hammering of the cement with the hammer drill knocked the brick off clean and easy.

Thank you very much for your help.

Could you please advice what product I can use to fill the cutout left by the curb and bring the surface back to level. It needs to bond with the cement around it and its around 5-6cm deep.

There are too many variation out there I'm afraid, sand n cement mix, self leveling, repair mortar ...

I'm not sure of the differences but i would rather the most economical option please.

Thanks

[MitchellMc]

Hi @ArashM,

I would advise using Dunlop 20kg Construction Grout to fill this void.

At this stage, it would be my advice to remove all the floor tiles. You'd then use Lanko 20kg 133 Pro Level Floor Leveller over the whole floor. You can have a professional waterproof the slab or install a shower base. If you decide to not use a pre-cast base then you'll need to remove wall tiles as the waterproofing has to be across the floor and up the wall. This needs to be a continuous layer and you are not able to simply water-proof the floor alone.

Your original idea of tiling over the existing tiles might not be possible now that you have effected the water-proofing layer.

Please let me know if you need further assistance or have questions.

Mitchell

[ArashM]

Hi @MitchellMc ,

I totally agree with you. I have removed the tiles on the rest of the floor but left the slab untouched. In the shower area i have removed the entire slab along with waterproofing membrane embedded in it down to the same level as where curb was removed. I'm planning to remove one row of the wall tiles without breaking them, apply waterproofing using Crommelin Waterproofing kit on the entire bathroom floor plus the first row of wall around the shower area. Since the original waterproofing up the shower wall is intact, as long as I overlap the new waterproofing with the old one on the wall, this should be more than sufficient to create a continuous seal.

Then I pour in the levelling mix and create the sloped curbless pan towards the drain.

After that I'm planning on doing another layer of waterproofing on top of the pan and the rest of the floor just for extra measure. then i put thinset on floor and first row of the wall and tile it.

I also need to mention that my wall tiles are painted white and I'm planning to repaint the walls on shower area since the chipped tiles have damage the paint, so I'll be using waterproof paint for that as well.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks again for your help.

[Jason]

Hi @ArashM,

Just letting you know that Mitchell won't be back on the site until Friday, but I'm sure he'll be happy to confirm that you have the right approach or provide any further advice.

Let me also tag experienced bathroom renovators in @Former Workshop member and @JDE to see if they might kindly be able to share their thoughts with you.

Thanks,

Jason

[ArashM]

Hi @MitchellMc ,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Before putting my shower base down using sand and cement mix, i leveled the floor using leveling compound. I cut the drain pipe down by few centimetres chiseled around it and installed a puddle flange.

Puddle flange come with an adaptor which allows height adjustment and i will use that to raise my drain grate up to match the screed height after i out down the screed.

2 Layers of liquid waterproofing will be put under and above the screed