There is nothing quite like the beauty of a real tile shower. You get to choose your own tiles, create patterns or mosaics, pick the colors you like and with a little creativity turn your shower into a work of art that no preformed shower stall can imitate. Ceramic tiles are by their very nature exceptionally tough and resistant to the wear and tear that fiberglass or plastic fall prey to. While installing tile takes longer, the end result is far more beautiful.
However, if you are going to install a tile shower, you are going to have to decide what type of shower base you are going to install at the outset. The easiest way to handle this situation would be to use a tile ready shower base as this type of shower base offers the perfect solution to several problems all at the same time.
While you can build your shower pan from mortar and then tile over it, there are at least three good reasons why using prefabricated shower pans makes more sense for the average installer. If you are thinking about creating a traditional mortar based shower pan, you need to know up front that this is a job for a highly skilled person as the slightest leak can be very damaging to your home. Make no mistake, if your shower base leaks water underneath it onto the floor, over time the floor will rot and eventually have to be replaced.
The mortar base must be built in multiple layers including a waterproof liner that if you do not get placed perfect is going to leak. Unless you have a high degree of skill in this area, you are more likely to end up with a leak that you are not going to see until it is too late and significant damage has been done to your floor. Using a tile ready shower base skips this problem completely and is much easier to install.
Then there is the issue of mold, unless there are long periods of time between uses (think days), the floor of your shower is going to stay wet. A shower floor that never has a chance to complete dry out is the ideal breeding place for mold. A mortar shower base is built from layers that include the mortar, waterproof liner and your tiles. The area between the liner and the top layer of your floor is likely to stay wet and grow a fine crop of mold.
In many cases this thick mortar layer may never completely dry out, which explains why no matter how much your clean your shower floor, mold continues to reappear rather quickly. When you use a tile ready shower base you eliminate the layers of mortar as the tile is laid right on top of the waterproof layer and there is nowhere for mold to grow, making this a very important advantage to using these shower pans.
Finally you have to take a close look at the way your shower is going to be connected to the drain. When you use a mortar style shower base, the drain is set up to catch the water in two places. First it catches the water at the tile and mortar level and then again at waterproof liner before being connector to the drain pipe. If you do not have a perfect seal at the liner level, your leak is going to be buried out of sight and will most likely have disastrous results that you are not going to be aware of until major damage has occurred.
On top of this you are going to be risking the lower drain holes becoming covered in a layer of mortar, something that is fairly common unless you are a skilled and practiced installer. The results of this type of problem can be equally devastating. All of these potential problems can make you want to shy away from enjoying the true beauty of a tile shower. By using a tile ready shower pan, you can avoid all of the major pitfalls that come with using a mortar shower base and be able to create the shower you have always dreamed of gracing your bathroom.
At Shower4ever we have the largest selection of tile ready shower products in the industry. Our inventory includes single curb shower pans, double curb shower bases, triple curb shower floor trays and bathtub replacement shower pans to make installing your new shower much easier and leak free.
