As I embarked on this adventure of completely renovating my bathroom, by myself, with zero experience, there was one thing I knew I could not compromise on – making the shower waterproof. As mentioned in a previous post, the demolition of the bathroom revealed some water damage to the subfloor. I had two thoughts on how to prevent this for the future, one was waterproofing past what is expected in a bathroom shower, and second was installing a shower door (which will come way later). I researched A LOT on waterproofing and the internet and my contractor friends agreed that the Schluter System was by far the best despite the price tag.
There are two methods of waterproofing using the Schluter System, one is to install regular drywall and add a Schluter-KERDI, a sort of waterproofing sheet, directly on top with thinset. I was originally going to do this method due to it being cheaper to ship until I discovered that the local Floor and Decor sold the Schluter- KERDI-BOARD. This basically skips the step of installing the waterproofing on top of a board, making installation that much easier.
Schluter has amazing educational videos. I relied on them heavily during installation. If you are interested in doing your own waterproofing, I highly recommend them. This was one of few videos I watched to get a good handle on what I was doing.
Cutting the board is much like drywall, yet it is much lighter and easier to maneuver. After cutting the boards to size, I used the designated screws to attach them to the studs. Schluter also has prefabricated wall niches which fit exactly between the stud in the back wall (so satisfying!). Schluter also has prefabricated shower pans which you can cut down to size. This was great as my shower was not a standard size and it removed the hassle of creating a slope into the drain.
Once all the pieces were in place, it was just a matter of applying thinset and covering the seams and screws with the KERDI-BAND. I did have a bit of trouble installing the drain but that was due to the fact that my pipes are cast iron and the drain is meant for PVC. I will be addressing that headache in another post…
Overall the installation was a breeze (compared to other methods). Afterwards I did a wet test before tiling. This part was nerve-racking as I didn’t want to cause any more water damage but lo and behold, I did in fact install everything correctly and the waterproofing was a success!
Rachel Williams
Artist | Designer | Educator
Making mistakes and fixing them, so you don’t have to