I'm gonna show you how to install a shower base into our bathroom.
For this we're going to need the following items of tools and equipment: some cement
mixing gear, some battery powered tools, some hand tools, some nails, our shower base, some
framing timber, a saw stool.
I got my level of course, but most importantly I've got all my safety gear so that we keep
safe on the job while we're doing it.
Our first step is to mark and cut the hole inside the floor so the shower tray fits nice
and snug.
We do this by measuring the square sump on the shower tray.
Then allowing around about 20 millimetres or more so we've got a little bit of movement
for the shower tray.
I'll measure this now.
Measure it on the floor and then cut the hole.
I'm just using my square to mark the lines very, very straight and square off the back
wall and my level as a straight edge to draw the other three lines in place.
We're about to cut our hole in the floor for the waste of our acrylic shower tray.
I'm gonna drill four pilot holes in each corner.
This just makes it easier for me to cut the hole out.
Let's use our grinder to cut out the fibre cement board first and then we'll use our
power saw to cut the rest of the floor out.
I'm now gonna remove my fibre cement board.
We're now gonna complete cutting the hole out with our battery saw.
Now that I've cut the hole with the power saw, I just want to finish up the corners
with the hand saw, so the piece in the middle will just pull straight out.
As you can see the flooring's just popped out.
We'll now clear the hole space.
We've now removed our flooring and discovered that we've got some under floor insulation.
We're now gonna trim this away and that we clear the hole ready for the shower tray to
be put in.
Great, the hole is clear.
Let's move onto the next step.
We're now gonna grab our shower tray and lay it in position and mark around the wall where
we need to chick it out.
We need to do the chick outs so that we can push the shower tray in the correct position
to allow the shower lining to come down and sit over the edge of the shower tray.
Another reason we put the shower tray in like this is to save measuring.
We can now use the edge of our shower tray for our pencil marks, it saves a lot of time.
We're also going to allow our pencil to be at an angle when we're marking just to allow
a little bit more allowance.
Let's remove the shower tray and start chiselling out our 10 millimetre recess.
With the shower tray removed you can now see a clear pencil line and the area we need to
chisel out.
Once again, we're gonna chisel back around 10 mls.
We don't need this amount, but let's give ourselves a little bit of clearance so when
we put our shower tray in we can cement it and put it in the right position.
There's two different ways we can do this.
One, we can use a nice, sharp chisel here, dig into the wall, drive it down to the floor.
The second way we can actually use a hand saw, cut it into the stud and then chisel
it out.
I'm now gonna continue to chisel out my 10 millimetres on every stud around the shower
tray and I'll also need to take the 10 millimetres out of the bottom plate.
To do this, simply grab a pencil, sit it up at the 10 millimetre line and mark it along
the bottom edge.
You'll see I'm using a safety guard for this.
The sole purpose is this timber is rough sawn and you could get splinters in your fingers.
Now we just need to clean the timber out, complete right around the shower tray, and
we're ready to install our shower tray.
We've now completed chiselling out our recess and our bottom plate and studs.
Let's just check the levels on the floor to see how much cement we're gonna need to put
the shower base in nice and level.
We use a level for this.
This floor's showing a little bit out of level, so we're gonna need more packing on this side
than this side.
Pretty good this side.
We'll now grab out wheelbarrow and our cement and mix up enough cement mix so we can install
our shower tray nice and level.
What we're gonna need for this, is we're gonna use some sand and cement and we're gonna use
a three to one mix.
That's three parts of sand and one of cement.
Mix it up, nice slurry so it's not too stiff or too runny so we can level out the shower
tray and put it in the correct position.
We've just now completed mixing our cement mix to a nice slurry.
We're now gonna move the cement onto the base of the floor allowing a little bit more cement
on this side because the floor is out of level.
Then wriggle our shower tray in, check the level and make sure it's fitting beautifully.
As you can see I've put the cement across the whole base of the floor so that the shower
base will fit nice and level, and nice and consistently.
We're now gonna grab the base and lay it on the ground.
Wriggle it around until it's nice and level so I can see it.
We're now checking the shower base for level.
We'll wriggle it around until it's in the correct position.
The tray is now sitting in the exactly right position we need to be.
The lining will now fit correctly inside the shower base.
We just need to grab a shovel and tidy up all the cement mix and put it back in the
barrow.
Now my shower tray's in.
I've cleaned up all the excess water mix.
I need to put a row of nogs around the bottom of the shower tray to hold the lining of the
shower.
We're now measuring our nog, 423.
We'll now cut our nogs and nail into position.
We're now going to install our nog just above the shower tray and nail it off with our nail
gun.
All our nogs have been put in in the correct position and now the base is finished.
All we need is for the plumber to come and fit his pipes.