I'm going to show you how to screed a shower base.
The tools I require for the job are some wood, a saw horse, a clamp, a saw, some trowels,
mixing gear, safety equipment, and some measuring equipment.
I'll also need some sand, some powder mastic, and some cement and a few buckets and a level.
All right.
We're just going to check the shower base for high and low spots.
The high spots could protrude through the screed and then make the tiles uneven.
There doesn't seem to be any high spots so we're going to move on to the next step.
The next step is to cut wedges which run from the corners of the shower base into the middle.
The reason for this is to allow the water to run from the outside of the shower base
into the grate.
Now I'm going to measure the shower base the full width to know how big to cut my wedges.
Now we got 1,200 in total from corner to corner of the shower base and that means we're going
to do 600 wedges.
So it'll go right from the corner right to the middle of the base.
I will have to cut these on an angle, but first I'm cutting them to length.
Now I'm going to mark my wedge.
The shower base that I'm doing today is 20 ml deep.
So I'll start my cut at 20 ml and run all the way down to 6 ml at the other end.
14 millimetres with a framed shower is a good amount of run off.
Now I'll use another piece of timber to mark the wedge.
And now we're going to secure this bit of timber with our clamp and cut along the line
we just made.
Just be careful at the other end because it is very narrow so take it slow.
So repeat that process three more times and we got our four wedges.
I'm going to put some rags down the drains ensuring that they're tightly fitting to stop
and screed or glue going down the drain and blocking it.
Now I'm going to put my wedges that I've just cut into place.
Now we just gotta make this screed and put the glue down.
This screed is made of 1 part cement to 4 parts sand and a little bit of water.
The consistency should be like a wet beach sand so that if you throw it gently it should
stay in a ball and not break apart but not so wet that it slops through your fingers.
Be careful not to add too much water, because adding too much water will make it go sloppy
and you don't require much to gain the consistency that you require.
Now we're going to mix up some powder mastic to spread down on the shower base before we
screed.
You put some powder mastic into the bucket and add a little bit of water and mix until
it's a toothpaste consistency.
We're going to put the glue down in the shower base first so the screed has something to
stick to.
First, remember to remove you wedges before spreading the glue so you get a nice even
spread on the shower base.
Spreading the glue down with a small notched trowel is desirable as too thick of bed of
glue will cause the screed to shift.
Next we'll stick the wedges back in and fill the whole shower base with screed.
Now we've put the screed in the shower base.
We're going to spread it out so that it covers all of the glue and the wedges.
We're going to use a flat trowel to do this.
Now I'm going to scrap the screed back to the level of the wedges.
Which we placed into the glue and that'll create the fall for the shower base.
If there's any small areas that you need to be a bit careful with you can use a smaller
bit of wood, a small spirit level, or even better a poly float.
It's important to get each section flat.
Even if that requires moving a little bit of screed from one section to another to build
up the level.
This may take a while but the extra effort you put in now will save when tiling.
Now we're going to remove the wedges and allow the screed to dry.
When the screed is dry we will then fill in the gaps created by the wedges with more screed.
Make sure you remove the rag now so the screed doesn't dry over the top of the drain or get
lodged in it.
Make sure there's no screed down the drain pipe and all the little bits of screed which
have fallen on top, let them dry, it's much easier to remove them when they're dry.
Now we've allowed the screed to dry, we're going to put a rag back down the drain and
tidy up.
To make sure you got a nice even surface, any uneven pieces you can scrape with a spatula.
Make sure you sweep the lines out after you've removed the last of the excess from the surface
of the shower base.
It's important to remove any rubble from the lines otherwise the screed that you're about
to fill it with will not stick.
The next step is to fill all of the gaps with a bit more screed.
To fill the gaps I'm using a spatula to push the screed in and then to cut it off flat
on the surface.
Make sure not to over fill the screed lines as you don't want high spots when the job's
dry.
Now we've filled the gaps with screed, we're going to sweep up the access and remove the
rag from the drain.
Now we're going to allow this to dry and then give it a final sweep and it's ready for tiling.
And that's how you screed a shower base.