Learning how to install a shower pan starts with good prep work, and installing shower
pan systems like the Wedi Fundo Primo begins with totally understanding the curb location
in relation to the shower pan location. But a lot of people just dive into this without
understanding how the curb location affect the finished look of the tiles, especially
if you've got a shower bench like this one here. So today, we're going to show you how
to plan the curb location such that your tile looks great in the end, and we're also going
to show you how we cut out the rest of this floor tile in the bathroom to fit the curb
in the shower pan because, after all, we did not replace the floor tile; we're keeping
it. So we're going to start today's video by showing you the Wedi Fundo Primo shower
system that we installed here in this bathroom. What we bought was a Wedi Fundo Primo kit.
Let's just open this up and show you what's in this box here. It comes with basically
all the wall board that you need, the shower pan, the tubes of sealant. With this particular
kit, we got a 3x4 shower pan mainly because since we're building a bench in that five-foot
space, we only needed a four-foot wide shower pan. So this is 3x4.
So this is the shower pan. Like I said, 3-ft by 4-ft. And the one nice thing that we'll
show you is that you can cut this down to fit whatever size shower that you need on
it. So it's very easy to customize. It comes with a corner trowel. It comes with
a curb. Now this is a thin curb. This is a… they call it the "lean curb." It's 2" by 3
½". I know it looks real flimsy and small, but what this will allow you to do is just
to use a regular 4-inch curb. So if you were to buy marble or something from your big box
store, typically they have the sills that are about 4" to 4 ½" wide. So it makes it
nicer because you're able to maximize the shower space within your shower versus having
a really wide curb for it. And then this particular unit comes with six sheets of that Wedi panel.
It also comes with a couple of extra features that don't come with… you can order separately
online; other things. But it has a little collar to go around your pipes. If we were
doing a tub spout, you can actually also use this on your shower head as well. But it's
just like a little sealing collar. And this would be for your mixing valve. So this is
just something that you thinset to… you can either thinset it, or you can use the
sealant to do it. But it's usually easier just to thinset this over the board so you
can seal under your valve. So then you get 100… this is 1 5/8" screws.
Now most of the time if you just have regular metal studs, you can just use these 1 5/8"
screws. It also comes with the washers. So you have 100 count of these washers to fasten
everything with. And then the standard drain kit. This gets bonded to the pan; that's how
you connect it to the drain. It comes with… this is basically kind of like a stainless
steel… I don't know. I guess you consider this more of like just a stainless steel finish.
It's kind of in-between chrome and brush nickel, but it's definitely like a stainless look.
This is what comes with the standard kit. So if you wanted a different color, if you
wanted like oil rub bronze, or if you did want like a shiny chrome, you'd have to order
that separately. But the kit comes with these. And then this little guy-we'll show you this
as well-but this allows you to extend the drain higher. So if you have like big pebble
stone floor or if you had some kind of like thick slate or something that you're doing
there, this will allow you to raise that up off of the shower pan so you can tile around
that. And then like I said, you have eight tubes.
This should be enough to do all of your sealing with the pan.
As you can see here, Steve is measuring inside or underneath the subfloor, marking the location
of the joist. And the reason why he's doing that is we had to cut out a portion of this
subfloor to access the plumbing for the old tub. So you can use a standard Sawzall with
a Sawzall blade to cut out the three sides of that subfloor, and then just tear it up
by hand after that. You can clean up a little bit of this using an oscillating multi-tool,
like the MultiMaster by Fein. Really does a nice job of doing that. And then finally,
we cut out the old ABS plumbing or drain, rather, with the oscillating multi-tool.
So what we're doing here is cutting down the shower pan curb to size. And then Steve is
using a chalk line to mark a chalk line and cut it down the half-inch Wedi backer board
for the side of the shower bench. We'll explain why here in a moment. But we're using four
screws and washers to attach it to the framing. Really easy to do; really easy to cut down
with the multi-tool. Now that we have the bench created, we're
going to show you what to cut the pan size for this kind of situation. Basically, the
kit comes with this 2" x 3 ½" curb. So this is considered their lean curb. And as you
could tell, it's pretty small. But the idea of this is to be able to get a smaller curb
top. So this is actually a 5-inch top, but you can down to 4 inches. Because by the time
you have tile on either side of this, you'll have basically 2 7/8" of total thickness here.
And with the 4-inch top, you'd have like a half-inch overhang on either side. Would that
be correct? Yeah, so it would be like 9/16 of an overhang on your curb if you were going
with the 4-inch top. But this is basically what this is going to look like. This is going
to allow me to tile either side of this and have an overhang on it. Because you want to
have an overhang. You don't really want to have your top plate being basically even with
your tile. It kind of looks a little ugly. Having an overhang like a countertop is pretty
much the way to go. So with this it'll probably be more or less the look you would have if
you had a 4-inch top on either side. So anyway, to show you what size to make the
pan in this situation, you have to consider that overhang on your curb top. Because if
you just brought your curb flush with the edge of your bench, you'd end up with kind
of an ugly overhang on your curb. And there's really no way to finish that. I mean it's
just kind of sticking out there. You're going to have tile on here, obviously, which would
bump it out another ¼". But you're just going to have an unfinished edge on your curb top.
So you want to be able to count for that reset or for that overhang and bring your curb inside
of that bench area so that when you put this in, it just kind of buts straight up to the
edge. So to maximize your shower area, just bring your curb top to the edge of the Wedi.
You're still going to have some quarter-inch tile or 3/8 tile. But whatever thickness of
your tile is, it's still going to stick outside of this. But to be safe, I would just go flush
with your edge of your Wedi on your bench. So in this situation, we're basically going
to sticking in approximately about an inch from the edge of your outside of your bench.
So then from there, you measure to the… so we got 34 ½" overall on the shower bench.
So this is 35 ½" on the bench; 34 ½" on the curb, to the edge of your curb. So our
pan that we'll be cutting is going to be just about 33 inches. So we're going to be cutting
3 inches off of our pan. So but again, the idea of recessing this curb in is basically
for the tiling process to make that look good. So now that we have the idea of where we want
our curb, let's go ahead and cut out this existing floor so that this… and I'm going
to give myself a little extra room just like I did on the other side. There's no reason
to be 100% tight for this because you're still going to have tile-like this goes on the edge
of this-that will cover your existing floor. So we need to cut out all these tile to set
this down into place. So as you can see here, Steve is using the
angle grinder. We're just using the WSG 7 by Fein and also the CGX 115 diamond blade
by Montolit to cut out the rest of this tile. And you'll find that sing a sponge, like Steve
is doing here, really cuts down on the dust. But be very careful. Remember, Steve is a
professional; he's done this many, many times. You also want to use a respirator when you're
using an angle grinder inside. But this does a great job of cutting that tile down to size.
So this is not the way you install HardieBacker. They just stapled this stuff in, so it's super
easy to get out. You're supposed to thinset your HardieBacker down, but some people do
it the way they want to. So what are your thoughts? Do you like Wedi's
lean curb? It's two inches wide and three inches deep. We feel that it makes smaller
showers look bigger, but we'd love to know what you think down in the comments.
Our next video's going to show you how to custom-cut the Wedi Fundo Primo shower pan.
There are going to be a lot of great tips in that. If you missed our prior video, we
showed you how to frame a shower bench seat, and you can watch that as well. It's a really
phenomenal video if you want to put a bench in your shower. Now if you are doing a complete
bathroom remodel and you want help with that and you want access to all of our videos,
you can join Bathroom Repair Tutor. That is a phenomenal resource for anybody who wants
to save time and money while doing a bathroom remodel.
So that's it for today. We'll see you in the next video. Take care. We'll talk to you soon.