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Do you like shower tile? Do you like drywall? Do you like to see when people mix the two? BOY DO I HAVE THE THREAD FOR YOU! For years I've been trying to tackle leaks coming from my shower, ever since I bought the house there's been issues. The plaster ceiling below the bathroom was soft and had to all be ripped out and re-drywalled, after we thought we had fixed the problem (trap and hot water stem). Then I thought maybe I could just put some more caulking around the spout and the front edge of the tub. I should have done this years ago but recently I just said "gently caress it" and decided to just rip it all out and fix whatever plumbing problems were behind the lovely tile. My dad is a pro and helped me big time with this, but we found it wasn't so much a plumbing problem (except for the spout, I'll get to that later) as it was a problem with the previous owner being a cheap rear end and doing a terrible DIY job. I can't imagine anyone would pay a contractor to do this bad of a job and if they did, they're both terrible. First let me show you what we had to work with.  Here's the front of my shower. The grout was pretty brittle because they seemed to have the grout lines really close together.  Notice how the tiles seem to be a little pushed out towards the bottom? Wonder why that is.  HEY GUYS IS THAT LIQUID NAILS HOLDING ON THE TILE? QUALITY JOB!  Oh but it gets better.   Look at all that mold! How did that get there? MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU TILED ONTO loving DRYWALL. Yes, no backer board. It was rotted to the core. And when I say core, well, there was absolutely nothing covering the spot with the connections.  I thought this was interesting - my house was built in 1900 and apparently in 1900 it was common to have a huge window by your tub so the neighbors could watch you scrub yourself. (According to old records my house was also a speakeasy too)  Using concrete backer board, we covered up the plaster after cleaning up the mold and letting everything dry. I took many a morning shower at the gym during this renovation.  My dad, figuring out where to start tiling. "Butt 1st" lol  "Ames Boys Git R Done" is my dad and I's motto when we do projects together, so I had to write it. My dad is awesome and I love him  But I wanted to draw attention to this genius method my dad came up with. Instead of using tile spacers, we bought about 4 trim pieces from Lowes that were 8ft long and 1/4" thick. We placed these longways for the length of the tile and snapped off pieces for the spots under the tile after getting our measurements for the top and bottom tiles, and put a ledger board under after getting a level line drawn. All you have to do is butt the tile up tight against each piece of trim and you can reuse the strips after the mortar dries enough. You don't have to put the rubber spacers in and ultimately pull them out with pliers (doing hundreds of them sucks rear end) and also those spacers can move a little too. The only issue you'll have is getting a bit of thinset on the trim pieces and you just wipe it off. We were able to tile the 3 walls extremely quick with this method.  As you can see, the grout lines are pretty dead on. The corner top had a bit of a gap but since the house is from 1900, nothing is ever square. It was full 12" tiles from one wall to another and it wasn't worth cutting a small piece, it'd look worse. When we caulked it, it looks just fine and is hardly noticeable. I also have a shower rack tower that covers it pretty good too. Here's the finished product, I have no drill towel racks to install tomorrow that just got delivered today (they either suction on or have a base for silicone in case the tile isn't smooth enough to keep suction). Grout sealer was applied and confirmed as dried, water beads right up.     Another problem we fixed was the spout nipple pipe - Apparently they didn't give a poo poo and put the spout on this terrible piece, and the threads were all hosed up. So the spout would angle up and water would trickle out of the back of the spout. If the bottom and grout was sealed it might not have been too much of a problem, but it probably caused most of the issue. We had to use a pipe wrench and a long PVC pipe to get enough leverage to break free the nipple connection. Got another 3" long 1/2 diameter nipple and the new spout went on like butter.  So what did we learn? - Never tile onto drywall - Never apply liquid nails to tile on said drywall for your bond - Fix your goddamn nipple - When the seller asks you "So what would you like to know about the house?" at closing, make sure to ask them "What DIY jobs did you totally botch and how long ago did you gently caress them up" My next steps are to paint the door and trim and find/install a decent no drill toilet paper holder. I'll probably have to reglaze the tub before I sell the house one day but it still looks OK. I can also now fix the ceiling below the bathroom and I'll have to repaint the ceiling in the living room and dining room. All in all this project only cost me around $350 (I also bought a nice Craftsman tile saw at a Sears that is closing in a couple months for cheap using a gift card I had) and it was money well spent. My dad made sure everything was done right this time, no shortcuts, because that's how he rolls. He basically lives on godlike patience, unlimited knowledge, lightning fast measurement calculations and root beer. I'd love to hear any feedback or questions you guys have. This was a really interesting experience and since my dad taught me all the tricks, I feel like I could do this again anytime from start to finish. This is something I want to teach my kids someday.
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Oct 22, 2016 01:07
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 03:33 |
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