In today’s video we’re going to show you how to waterproof the walls of a curbless
shower surround. Now, what made this particularly challenging was the fact that there’s a
window inside the shower. But we used HYDRO BAN Board to simplify this process and make
the walls 100% waterproof. We’re going to install HYDRO BAN Board as
our backer board, which is essentially a waterproof board made by Laticrete. One of the great
features about this is, first off, it’s already waterproof. So, you install this,
you just have to address where you put your screws and then your seams and everything’s
waterproof. But the other nice thing is that the entire core of this is waterproof as well.
So if you nick the surface of this, you’re not going to damage the integrity of the waterproofing.
So just as long as you don’t go all the way through the board, you’re still going
to be safe. To me, that really gives a lot of extra confidence in it. A lot of different
situations where you can actually puncture this membrane and, you know, be concerned
about it leaking. Whereas being able to know that as long as you don’t go all the way
through the board, then it’s still going to be waterproof. So definitely a fast, easy
system to install. But the first thing you want to do, again,
is the VIM pan. You just put a generous bead of the HYDRO BAN sealant, and it is basically
just to adhere that board to the pan. And you just need to use the screws that are provided
with the HYDRO BAN Board. You just want to smooth this. Smooth it out.
For this project, the wood studs were 16” on center, and we placed a screw every 12”
on center along the stud to support the board. Instead of wasting all this extra material
here, we’re actually just going to go ahead and install this on the top and the fill in
the sides because that will basically take up a whole sheet, and there’s really no
reason to cut that much. So we’re just going to measure to the top
of our framing here from underneath. That’s 16 7/8”. It’s the same, I’m pretty sure,
16 7/8”. Okay, and then you just take the utility knife and cut this.
As you can see, it’s very easy to cut through the HYDRO BAN Board. You just need a utility
knife, and that’s pretty much it. Obviously, you can also an oscillating multi-tool, but
it’s not necessary unless you want to do some refined cuts. For example, here on this
board, we’re going to be using an oscillating multi-tool to make the HYDRO BAN Board flush
with the framing. Okay, so in order to meet two boards together
like that, you want to put a bead of the sealant to the top and bottom.
Again, it’s very important to use the sealant between adjacent HYDRO BAN Boards and to smooth
that out and to use the right type of screws. You can’t just use any screw. Here we’re
using out multi-tool again to refine our cut up against the window framing. That helps
out a lot. Before any of this dries along the bottom
here, it’s not a bad idea to feather this out.
Smoothing out the HYDRO BAN sealant is important because it can interfere with your tile setting.
Here we’re just snapping a chalk line and cutting the board to size using a utility
knife. We just need to fill in this one last slot on the right-hand side of this window
wall. Using HYDRO BAN Board makes waterproofing
around the window so much easier versus cement board.
Again, where the board meets the board, put a bead.
So again, we’re just applying that sealant. We’re putting our board in place and using
the right screws that should be bought along with the HYDRO BAN Board.
So here we’re just adding a board to the top of the last board that we installed, and
we’re cutting it to size to be flush with the window sill. So again, you can see how
easy it is to use the HYDRO BAN Board to waterproof around the window in the shower. This isn’t
ideal. You shouldn’t really have a shower with a window in it, but nonetheless, sometimes
you can’t do anything about that, and it’s just part of the home. So having HYDRO BAN
Board makes it so much simpler. Here we’re just getting our final measurement
for the plumbing wall and cutting our boards to size to fit around the plumbing fixtures.
Just get a marking on the pipe here. We can just use a utility knife to cut a small circle
around that, or you can use a paddle bit too. The nice thing about these thick foam boards,
they can easily… just marking where my valve is and just make a nice cut according to that.
Okay, before you put this in, just make sure you get a bead of caulking on your VIM pan
and also down on your corner here. And I would
keep your first row of screws above the floor. You don’t want to pinch this all the way
down to where this is going to kind of be off the pan.
As Steve explained, we’re adding the first set of screws about 4” above the VIM pan
so that the board doesn’t bellow inward. And we’re checking that the board is plumb
with our 4’ level, and then adding the screws per the HYDRO BAN Board directions. If you
do that, you’re going to have a successful installation of the waterproofing boards on
the wall. Here we’re getting measurements on the left and the right of the shower pan,
and we’re just cutting a hole into the board using a paddle bit. And that will ensure that
our shower arm pipe will fit through there properly. So again, we’re just adding our
sealant both on the top of the board and to the adjacent boards on the main wall. We’re
putting our board in palace and then using our screws to get the board nice and flush
with the adjacent ½” drywall that’s in this bathroom. You can see how quickly it
is to use the HYDRO BAN Board on the plumbing wall.
Here we’re doing the exact same method on the wall opposite that. So again, it’s a
very quick installation. And if you’re using the right screws and the right technique,
this is going to be 100% waterproof, and it’s going to be a very, very quick installation
for you. The main thing is to remember to always smooth out the sealant that oozes out
between the boards and between the VIM shower pan. That’s really important for your tile
setting. Okay, so around this window, obviously a window
is not an ideal feature to put in your shower. Just saying that on the basis that, you know,
you got an area where the outside of the window is created waterproof so water doesn’t come
in, but a double-hung window was never really designed to keep water out from the inside.
So what we do is pretty much do the best that we can to waterproof against this, basically
eliminating any ability for the water to get out into the sill area. We’ll just use a
HYDRO BAN Board to go around that and using the sealant to go up against the window. Bottom
sill in first. So it’s not also a bad idea to sit this
in here and just see how level or not level it is because you really want, when this is
sucked down, you want this to kind of, especially the bottom sill, to pitch towards the shower
so that any water that hits this is going to go into the shower. So just make sure that
your framing is slightly created to slope inward. If it’s not, a way that you can
address this, which this is, what you can do is use thinset underneath this and slope
it towards the shower. But it’s usually ideal, if you can help it, to create the framing
so that it automatically pitches toward the shower.
So put a bead on your board, and then we’ll put a big, nice bead against this window and
basically press the board into it to where it’s oozing out from that window cavity.
So you could see that oozing up out of that window sill. That’s what we want. You want
to make sure that this is completely water tight to that. I’ll go ahead and put our
two screws in. So I’m just actually just pulling this away
from the window because I don’t want to smear up against the window. Then we’re
going to have tile that comes up 3/8, but this stuff probably won’t come off the window
very easily. So I kind of press it down. And if you can, use a factory edge up against
the window; it’s going to be a lot flatter up against the window. If not, just make sure
it’s a nice, straight edge. So we put a nice bead against this window again, get down
along the base of your HYDRO BAN Board, and go up along where the other board meets. Smooth
out any of your sealant. As you can see here, we’re applying the
sealant to the window itself, along the bottom, and along the HYDRO BAN Board. We’re adding
our little board here to the right-hand side, we’re screwing it in place, and we’re
cutting it down using our MultiMaster. Then we’re smoothing out any of the sealant that
oozes out between the window and the board; that’s really important for your tile setting.
So again we’re just applying the sealant along the perimeter to the top of the framing
there. We’re adding our board, screwing it in place. And cutting it down with the
multi-tool. So it’s really important to get these boards flush with the adjacent boards
that are around the window. As you can see here, the next step is to seal all the screws
and seams. Okay, so once you get all the board hung,
then you need to go back over all your seams in the corners and the screws. So just go
ahead and do the corners first. Just basically a nice, generous bead helping down that corner.
All the way down to the bottom. And then you can use a little corner trowel. I mean you
can use a regular putty knife as well on both sides, but a plastic corner trowel really
helps get everything nice and tight. And it uses a little less sealant if you were to
do it the other way. So, every screw hole patch over. And then you might put a bead
across your seams. And then you could see how we kind of overcut
this hole. Well, we’re going to make sure it’s center for one. But you could just
easily add a little bit of sealant there and kind of bridge more of that hole.
Okay, then I would go across all of your window seams as well.
As you can see, we’re applying a nice bead of the sealant around the perimeter of the
window and also remove any of the stickers that are on the board. You don’t want to
leave this on the board because it’ll interfere with the tile setting. And then find all the
screws that are in the HYDRO BAN Board. Also, if you do have any screws that you had to
remove, you want to add sealant around those. So again here, we’re just working on our
window, making sure all that sealant is nice and flat against the board. Same thing with
all the sealant that’s around the screws and the screw holes that you missed because
the sealant needs to be flat in order for you to be able to set your tile the right
way. The sealant could perhaps interfere with your tile setting, so it’s really, really
important to have that as flat as possible and flush with the surface of the board. So
pay particular attention to all your screws. You don’t want to miss those because remember,
any penetration through the HYDRO BAN Board is a point where it could leak into the stud
bay. And around your Grohe flange you can seal
to your rough-in valve, which is such an awesome capability with this type of rough-in valve.
Because what you’ll do is you’ll tile everything and then you’ll cut thus flange
off flush with the tile. But being able to completely waterproof around this is really
nice because most valves you’re just relying on that escutcheon plate sitting against the
tile. So like we’re going to be doing subway tile here, and subway tile has all these different
grout joints. So the escutcheon plate never sits nicely against the grout joint. But knowing
that this is now 100% waterproof behind there, I know that nothing’s going to get behind
that wall when the water is hitting the back of your shower valve. So definitely a nice
feature using that Grohe system. So an added feature, this is probably overkill
in a way, but this is something that’s recommended and not a bad idea to do, is basically all
the corners going around the window, we’re going to use some cement board tape. You know,
this is an alkali resistant tape, and basically just reinforce these corners. But since this
is a little bit wet, it’s going to be easy to embed this mesh.
So again, you want to use alkali resistant tape. This is the same tape that you would
use for cement board. So you can just grab it at your local home store. And the reason
why we’re putting this over top of the HYDRO BAN that’s inside the window is for us to
give more rigidity to that area. And also to reduce any chance that there’s going
to be expansion and contraction that could adversely affect the tile setting. So Steve
will mention his thoughts on this particular step in the process of waterproofing around
the window. You know, it’s something that Laticrete does recommend. So at this point
we’re doing it because of their recommendations. And it’s really the sealant that helps that
alkali resistant mesh bond to the HYDRO BAN Board. So the more sealant you have, the more
that that’s going to bond. So this corner mesh that we’re putting in
this window sill, this is to Laticrete’s recommendation to do this. Definitely not
a bad idea. Definitely reinforces the corners. It’s going to make ensuring that any shrinkage
or anything that goes in between the boards isn’t going to create a gap. Overall, it’s
a good idea. But putting this corner mesh is a real pain. My feeling is that the mesh
is a little bit of an overkill, but not a bad idea. But it is a little bit frustrating
to get nicely tight to this corner because you really want to have everything nice and
tight. You don’t want to have a bunch of bubbles sticking out because it’s going
to make all your tile work harder to get around it. So you really want to try to keep everything
as tight as possible. So this is kind of another overkill idea here,
but you’re actually using… just reseal this, but we’re actually going to be putting
a layer of the mesh waterproofing in the corners. But this will just be an added layer of protection.
In another video, we’re going to show you how to use the mesh that came with the VIM
pan along with HYDRO BARRIER to completely waterproof the pan and the bathroom floor.
So again, in another video we’re going to show you how to do that.
Okay, and then if you have additional sealant to use, if you want to address the drywall
seam here… Now, you want to be careful that you’re not going to come outside of your
tile work. Basically we’re going to be coming out 30” so we’re basically a ½” outside
of where our transition is. But if you’re concerned about this area, you can always
just use some of the sealant right on that seam. Where your shower doors are going to
be, this really isn’t going to be a wet area because your shower doors are going to
probably be another inch inside. So it’s really up to you. It really depends whether
you have enough sealant to go over this seam. But I wouldn’t really consider it a critical
area, but not a bad idea just to fill that area.
Smoothing the sealant in this area is important because you don’t want it to interfere with
the installation of your shower doors or with the tile that will overlap the HYDRO BAN Board
and the surrounding drywall. So again, just smooth it down with your putty knife, and
you should be good to go. This curbless shower turned out great. We
actually used subway tile on the walls and a marble mosaic on the shower pan. If you
want to see how we tiles this shower, we’re going to put all those videos inside the Bathroom
Repair Tutor video library. You can click right here to check that out for yourself.
It’ll definitely help you simplify the craft of building a custom bathroom.
Thanks for watching our tutorial today. If you have any questions, let us know, and we’d
be more than happy to help you out. Take care!