So you might be wondering why I’m sitting in a walk-in shower. Well the reason why is
this is easily my most favorite room in our home. My wife and I, we saved up our money
to remodel this bathroom. It turned out phenomenal. And we have that opportunity for you today
to see how to build your own walk-in shower, and it starts out with the shower pan. So
today we’re going to show you how to install the Wedi Ligno shower pan. It will make your
walk-in shower base completely 100% waterproof. It’s easy to install. So if you’re a DIYer
or a professional, you can definitely do this on your own. And here’s the deal: Walk-in
showers are way safer than stepping over a bathtub or a curb shower in the morning. So
if you’re looking to build a walk-in shower, this is a great video to start with, all right?
So let’s dive into it right now. Today we’re going to show you how to install
the Wedi Fundo Ligno shower pan. They come in a lot of different configurations, but
we’re using the 48” x 48” x ¾” thick pan. What you need to do first is dry fit
it over top your wood subfloor. That’s what Steve is doing right here. He’s going to
mark out the position using a pencil and then pull the Ligno pan up off the floor and cut
down the subfloor. So the way that you’re going to cut down the subfloor is one of two
ways: either with a Sawzall, like Steve is showing you here. He’s just using a demo
wood blade by Diablo. Or you can use a circular saw. But the nice thing with the Sawzall is
you can use the blade to guide your cut along any 2’ x 4’s. So he’s just going to
cut out a small section. It’s like a 1’ x 48” section then use a wonder bar or pry
bar to pull up that small section of wood to expose the joist. He’s going to use a
bigger pry bar to do the exact same thing with the bigger portion of the OSB.
So here you go. Now all your joists are exposed. Pull any nails that are on top of them. Place
a level on every single joist and also across the joists to make sure that they are level
because the Ligno won’t drain properly if it’s not the case. You can shave down joists
if they’re a little bit boat up. Or you can sister 2’x material to them to get them
nice and level. Now in this case, what Steve is doing is applying
liquid nail to a 2’ x 4’. He’s going to place that 2’ x 4’ ¾” below the
existing joist. The top of the joist he’s got a ¾” OSB template that he put on top
of it, and he’s tacking it in place. Now the reason why he’s doing this is we’re
going to be putting OSB or you can put plywood over top those 2’ x 4’s and in between
the joists such that now you’ve got a subfloor that’s ¾” below your subfloor within
the rest of the bathroom. So you can see all those 2’ x 4’s are tacked to the joists.
Now we’re ready to install the OSB. So Steve is going to slide the OSB underneath
any existing 2’ x 4’ bases. We want the OSB underneath the existing framing because
we’re going to apply thinset to it, and you don’t want the thinset to ooze out between
the framing and the new OSB. Now in this case, we’re dealing with the stairwell framing.
We had to tack on more 2’xs, and then we’re going to put the OSB on top of that. Now Steve
is going to apply liquid nail to it. I’m showing you this because you may run into
this exact situation, you may not. But again the reason why we’re putting the OSB nice
and tight to the frame is so the thinset won’t ooze out in between those two joints.
Now if you’ve got drywall underneath the joist—so for example, a ceiling—you want
to put in your plumbing first even before you put those nailers in. So get all your
plumbing in place before you put the nailers in and before you attach the plywood to the
nailers. Steve is applying liquid nail to all the nailers, and then he is going to put
his OSB on top of that and slide it underneath the 2’x framing and tack them in place using
a nailer. You can also use decking screws and an impact driver to do this if you don’t
have a nailer. So what we’re doing here is providing a really nice, sound structural
platform that is ¾” below the existing wood subfloor, and we’re going to put the
Ligno on top of that, which we’re going to show you here shortly. But again, this
is nice, strong structural base for the Ligno. You’re going to dry fit the Ligno again
and then draw a hole marking the location of the drain because the bottom of the Ligno
needs to fit down through that hole. So we need to cut a 6 ½” in the OSB here. So
that’s what Steve is doing. He’s measuring out from center, from the center of that drain
location, a 6 ½” hole. You pre-drill using a spade bit, and then you can cut that out
using a jigsaw. And when you get done with it, you’ll have a nice 6 ½” hole for
the Ligno to fit down through. And that’s very, very important that you get this set
up before you apply the thinset to the OSB. The next step is to attach 2’x material
to the back of your framing because we’re going to be installing your plumbing. And
what we’re using here is a Delta mixing valve. This is a rough in valve with integral
stops that’s critical if you don’t have shut off valves. We’re also going to have
a diverter valve attached to that because that diverter valve is going to going to run
plumbing to the shower head, to a handheld shower, and then also body sprays. So you
want about 14” between your rough in and that diverter valve to allow for enough space
for the escutcheon. So the escutcheon will fit around that rough in valve, and you want
tile to be between the rough in and the diverter. Now in the case of a Delta rough in, you want
the 2’x material to be flush with the back of your framing. That way when you go to secure
the rough in valve to that 2’x material, the rough in and the diverter will be flush
with your ½” Wedi that’s going to be going on the wall. And that will allow for
a really good look when you put your tile onto the Wedi.
The Ligno shower pan by Wedi requires latex modified thinset. In this case, we’re using
Mapei’s Kerabond and Keralastic. The Keralastic is the latex additive. You need about ½ a
bag of the Kerabond for a 4’ x 4’ shower pan. So that’s what Steve is doing here.
He’s adding the Kerabond to the Keralastic and mixing it up per the Mapei directions.
Now in this case, we’re using a ¼” x ¼” square notch trowel. We’re going to
use that to embed the thinset onto the OSB. The first thing you want to do before installing
the pan is to actually install the drain assembly. And what you need is the Wedi caulking that
comes with it. This is actually a sausage container cartridge for a sausage gun. And
this just gives you about twice as much as a regular caulking gun, but they do sell it
in regular caulking tube forms. So the drain is pretty simple, pretty standard. It just
has a slip ring, a tightening lock ring, a plastic slip ring, then a rubber gasket at
the bottom. So what you want to do is first apply some Wedi caulking to where the drain
piece is going to sit, and be generous with it. And what I always do is just go around
in the inside of the drain assembly as well just to make sure that there isn’t any missing.
So you just sit this in place. And around the back side you put the rubber gasket on
first, plastic slip ring, and the locking nut. You don’t need any pliers or wrenches
or anything like that. This is all just going to be a stiff hand tighten this to it. And
there’s an excess sealant. Just wipe off, and that’s all there is to it. So then we’ll
be able to thinset this pan in. We got this in place.
So since Wedi is a waterproof shower system, you have to use all the components that go
with it. And the Wedi waterproof caulking that is specifically made for this product
must be used, especially for the drain assembly and any joints that you use. The thing with
this foam products is that you’ve got to be careful with not using any harsh chemicals.
Anything that’s not basically used in the system: no liquid nail, no silicone, nothing
like that. Just use the caulking. And the caulking is pretty amazing stuff. It has a
real flexibility to it, so it never completely hardens. And that’s why when you use it
in the joints and in the corners and stuff, it’s going to last forever and not have
any cracking. Always use the products that are within the system. That’ll guarantee
the waterproof system. First thing now that we have the drain assembly
put on, you just want to dry fit this again and make sure this is going to fit in the
proper location before you do a thinsetting down. Because once your thinset is down, especially
the Ligno pan, it gets very difficult to pull back up because that thinset’s really just
suctioning this to the floor. So just dry fit it. Make sure it fits. Make sure that
drain is sitting down in correctly. Yeah, so no banisters. Everything’s sit flush
on there. Now we’re going to go ahead and thinset
this pan down. And what I always do is try to take a damp rag and wipe down the area
that you’re going to be thinsetting. This is on any tile installation on plywood. You
kind of just clear off the dust. Moisten the plywood a little bit so that the thinset doesn’t
get dried out too quickly. Notch a ¼” square notch trowel, and burn the thinset ino the
plywood. Do that first and then you’ll notch it out. In this small space, we’re going
to go ahead and back butter, back trowel our pan because we’re not going to have much
room to put this in prior after I do that. So we’ll go ahead and back butter the pan.
Whatever way you trowel marks, run it the same way on the pan. The idea behind that
is to allow the hinges to collapse and remove any excess air. Okay, so with that back buttered,
we’ll finish our pan here. Okay. That should get good adhesion on it. Since
we have a little bit of customary shower pan size with this back wall, we should go ahead
and just make sure that our back wall receives the ½” panel tightly. So any thinset that
comes up through your dado joint here, you want to wipe out clean around the pan. And
that’s definitely going to happen if you have good thinset coverage. So wipe that clean
because you’re going to be using the Wedi sealant, and that sealant needs to seal to
this foam. So make sure all your edges are all clean.
After the pa is thinsetted down, you want to put some weight on the pan itself. So extra
pieces of piles of tile work pretty well for that. For the first 30 minutes at least have
some weight on there. And then once you get some of these side panels in, you’ll be
able to take them off. So hopefully you saw how easy it is to use
the Wedi Ligno shower pan. Now we’re going to have a second video for you that’s going
to be a part two. We’re going to show you how to install the Wedi building panels on
your framing, and that will make the walls in your walk-in shower 100% waterproof as
well. So if you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs
up. If you’ve got a question, ask it down in the comments section. If you’re looking
for more advanced training on how to remodel your bathroom, you can check out BathroomRepairTutor.com.
So again, you can go to BathroomRepairTutor.com to check out the advanced training for bathroom
remodeling. That’s where Steve and I also give support for DIYers who want to do a bathroom
renovation on their own. So again, thanks so much for watching today’s
video. You can check out part two here soon on how to build your walk-in shower completely
using the Wedi building panels and the Wedi Ligno shower pan. All right, so again, thanks
for watching. Take care. We’ll talk to you soon.
I don’t know about you, but the bathroom is one of the only places in my house where
I can get some peace and solitude. Don’t tell my family. This is where I hide.