No, that's not true in all cases. Our contractor resloped the area under our shower (which had to be reworked anyway because of rot). If you were doing a wet bathroom then i could understand why he would say you had to have a threshhold at the entrace of your bathroom. But if that isn't what you are planning then I don't understand.

Have heart. Alot of contractors are new to curbless showers and are nervous about it, or don't quite understnad how all the pieces are supposed to fit together. Bill Vincent knows the ins and outs on this stuff so hopefully he will replhy.

Thank you Andrea. I am feeling more hopeful...

Come on Bill Vincent! We are waiting for YOU! :)

If you have access to the floor underneath the shower, you can lower the floor. That's what we did. The joists were cut down 2" and sistered to add the necessary strength to the shortened joists.

Is this new construction?

A remodel? - what's on the current floor? If its a mud job from the 50's-60's you can remove it all and have plenty of room/slope/thickness to accomplish a curbless in many cases.

Hope you will provide more details since we hope to have a curbless shower in our future. Am VERY interested in the "engineering" of such a feature.

What type of foundation? (slab, pier and beam, other?) Is shower on a second floor? Size of bathroom - distance from shower edge to bathroom door?

If the entire room will be wet, a curb at the entrance would be required.

Otherwise, you can consider having a sunken floor for the wet area. I had a curbless shower done in a fashion similar to what suero described. The following link practically describes my master bath.

Here is a link that might be useful: curbless shower and decisions

Hello everyone. Thanks for writing.

This is a remodel. We are going to the studs and subfloor so we have access to the floor and can so what Suero suggests.

Also, the house is from the 1890's and there is no plumbing in that area. Does anyone foresee other problems with this? We are redoing all of the plumbing also.

I am a little bit concerned that out contractor did not know that he can do this... Should I be worried???

Thanks again for your help.

Happy - you should probably enlist a bath designer and or an architect that have done this type of shower before. There are a lot of gotchas with this and learning as you go is not really a recipe for success.

Another issue could be your drain. The ptrap for that shower will be a bit lower than that of a curbed shower. It might make a difference if you have finished space below this bath. You also have to have enough pitch in your waste pipes to flow wastewater and cutting/boring through floor joists is usually not an option.

I would be concerned enough to ask him for more details as to why he gave you that guidance. Can he explain his thought process, or provide building codes for your areas that would demonstrate his reasoning. Repost with what he says; then if his advice turns out to not be right you probably need to work with someone else. that being said, curbless showers are still pretty new so if this is a contractor you like and trust and has other good experience, then you might still go with him.

My contractor is my stepbrother and I knew he would do an excellent job, as he had done alot of work on my Mom's house and the quality was excellent. Plus, he would have heard about it every Xmas, Thanksgiving, etc if he messed up the job. But, curbless was new to him...still I had confidence that he could learn how to do them and do a good job...and he did.

Oh, what a great link. Thank very much Suero.

Andrea, I will ask him and get back to you.

Thank you everyone for all of you advice.

Although common in the rest of the world, curbless showers are relatively new in the US. Make sure your contractor know what he is doing (and ask for photos of such showers he has done before).

Otherwise look for someone who has done this before.

Hope you are doing a linear (trench) drain. much sleeker look and worth it given the extensive remodel you are doing.

I don't know how you saw the membrane lying flat. My contractor used that to build my shower and it definitely has a mud preslope, liner, then mud, and weepholes.

suero,

I think Laz is referring to the drawings in the pdf, not to your specific shower.

Here's page 9 showing the membrane flat on the floor:

Thanks, Mongo. You're correct...I was referring to the PDF photos. Used to live in NC and thought them "Tarheels" could do better than that.....Don't mislead the DIY'ers....

Lazarus, if I copy and past your comments into a doc for my contractor, will he know what you're saying in order to do the job right? Because to me it sounds like a foreign language and I don't understand any of it, yet.

I should thinks so, assuming he has basic understanding of shower construction and proper channeling of water and gravity......

Alternatively, you could just copy the link to this thread and have him look at this discussion.

If you want to see a step-by-step of a conventionally membraned shower, check out Harry Dunbar's website.

It's a good series showing the subfloor prep, the mud preslope, the membrane, then the deck mud.