Shower Pans -- The Leak Stops Here
Shower pans stop leaks before they have a chance to start. The pans must be right because shower floors in tile showers just naturally will leak. The tile and grout that you see when looking at tile shower floors don't stop water. The water stopping happens below the surface hidden away.
Without a properly designed and installed shower pan, water that hits the floor actually soaks the base of the tiles shower and eventually makes it through the base to destroy the surrounding area around the shower. The same result happens if the liner fails for one reason or another. Here's what the liner does...
The actual water barrier in the floor consists of one layer that, unlike the floor you see, really is waterproof. That one layer in most tile showers now is a single sheet of waterproof material.
The material may be either chlorinated polyethylene (CPC) or it may be PVC (polyvinyl chloride). In either case, what you get is a thick, vinyl sheet that becomes one of the several layers in a tile floor at the bottom of the shower.
The two types of material produce the same result but act slightly differently. CPC is more flexible and easier to work with but costs considerably more and is more difficult to find. As a result, most floors contain PVC sheets.
Once the liner is built into the floor, any water that leaks through the surface of the shower floor is caught by the liner membrane. The membrane installation is such that the water then flows down hill to the shower drain and away from the shower and to the right place.
More mysteries are suggested as you contemplate how the water gets to the drain and how all that can take place beneath the floor. Is there a basement in a shower floor? Is a shower floor hollow? These questions address the mysteries of a shower pan and it's workings.
Shower pans go together by layers and keep the water right where it should be. The problem with building shower bases is that most of the working parts of a shower are buried. The mysteries are built into the floor. Only by understanding how each layer works can you understand how to build or repair a shower.
Visit our website for a free step-by-step shower pan installation plan.
Check out our installing ceramic tile site for tips on installing tile of all kinds.
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