How to: Do-It-Yourself Pan in the Shower Before Tile

Shower flooring, such as tile or fiberglass, does not install directly over the subfloor of a bathroom. Instead, a shower pan must be installed on the floor to direct water toward the shower drain and prevent water damage to the subfloor beneath the shower. If you intend to install shower tile, you dont have to hire someone to install a shower pan first. You can do it yourself prior to the tile-installation process.

Instructions

Use a stud finder to find the floor joists and mark them. Measure off the area on the floor around the drain where you want to install the shower pan, making sure to include a joist just inside each edge of the shower pan area. Mark the measured space off with masking tape to create a guide.

Cut just inside the taped-off area with a circular saw set to the depth of the floorboards and remove the cut floorboards from the floor. Use a hammer to remove any nails in the floorboards in that area.

Change the circular saw depth to 3 inches and make cuts into each joist in the shower pan at each end where the joist meets the perimeter of the open space, and cut into the joists from the side between these two marks to cut the depth of the joists down by 3 inches.

Take a measurement of the space between the joists that you trimmed down. Measure and cut enough wood board pieces of this length to place a board every 6 inches between the joists inside the shower pan area, and drive concrete screws through these boards to attach them to the floor. The boards should be inch shorter than the joists in the shower pan area.

Cut 3/4-inch plywood down to fit into the spaces in between the original joists, on top of the new boards you put into place. Nail the plywood to the boards with roughly 1 -inch nails. Cover this new plywood surface with a shower pan liner, following the instructions included with the liner for proper installation.

Mix up a batch of mortar according to the manufacturers instructions. Spread the mortar over the shower pan liner so the mortar goes all the way up to the floor at the sides and slopes downward so that only about an inch of mortar lies around the area of the drain. Let the mortar bed dry fully before installing tile.

Measure the area on the floor around the drain where you want to put the shower pan. Lay a shower pan liner on top of the floor in this area, covering the entire floor space where you want to put the shower pan.

Cut 3-inch boards down to the lengths that you want to make each side of the pan. Nail the boards together into a square or rectangle, set the form into the space where you want to build the shower pan and place concrete blocks around the outside edges of the form to hold it in place.

Mix a batch of mortar according to the manufacturers directions. Spread mortar into the area inside the wood frame with a trowel so that the mortar sits level with the top of the frame.

Use a spade to skim mortar out of the frame in a downward slope. Leave the edges by the frame 3 inches in height and skim the mortar until the area of the drain has only 1 inch of mortar in place.

Return to the edges of the pan, by the wood frame, and build a wall approximately 2 inches in width by the frame to create a lip around the shower pan. Allow the mortar to dry for 72 hours prior to tiling.

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