Following.

I am in the same dilemma on her situation as Lisa. It just looks so messy that it piques my suspicions regarding effectiveness....hope all works out for her....

I sure hope for both of you, you hired PRO "shower builders", and got guarantees in writing and had your showers FLOOD tested and proven to be water tight pans..

So often these days I am getting repair work from homeowners that source the best priced craigslist tile handyman and took a chance baited by price......

Afterall how would a novice homeowner know what to ask? what to look for? it is complicated and overwhelming to many, most homeowners only have a shower built once or twice....

The industry is moving very fast today, selling product hand over fist with all the failed installations.....Still telling everyone its easy, do it yourself in a day!!!


Very sad for the tile industry there isn't more regulation/inspection.......such as w/plumbing and electrical......

A shower tear out/redux will cost you easily triple the deal price in the end.

Who did you hire? where did you find them? did you verify they guarantee their showers, and how big a factor was price? was it FLOOD TESTED?

best of luck...... I feel for you.......

I was just commiserating with Lisa. In fact I am planning to convert MBR bath/with shower to a nice big walk in shower.
Sure going to look at the pros on Houzz. My question is: do I need a plumber and tiler to coordinate their jobs or do I do that?

You hire a Licensed plumber and a licensed tile installer that builds showers. Not 1 or 2 on their portfolio or A year. You request in advance A flood tested shower pan and involve your city inspector.

In our case we have a master plumber we recommend .....

many times the client has their own plumber and we will work with them together as a team after a quick meet and greet we know if we are dealing with a competent plumber and vice versa!

Together they will know exactly how to proceed based on your vision. Let them be the pro and guide you.

If youv'e done your due diligence in screening / hiring you must then put your faith in your choices.

hope that helps good luck......

So glad I found my contractor. He did my kitchen last year (great job) and is doing my master bath. Did a long flood test, and also used a hot mop instead of a pan. I have a new appreciation for the time and cost involved in a bath remodel.

yes , certainly the screw pattern seems a bit light. Also, more importantly , it appears he is using drywall screws. additionally, I am not a fan of hardy board in that application. I have found that Durarock holds up much better

you guys are awesome. my husband has asked everyone to stop so we can get our bearings -- we are using a "professional" who has done other bathrooms in this apartment building, but his helper has been doing the work :-(

Besides
a water test to prove that the substrate is water tight did your contractor
file for a permit? Most building departments require a inspection on a custom
built shower pan and would also require the contractor to have the installation
instructions to be present at the time of inspection.

You may want to bring in an independent contractor to get a second opinion before you tile.

This is the finished Kerdi installation? Then no, it is not ready for tile. It appears to have been installed incorrectly and against manufacturer's recommendations and my educated guess would be Schluter would definitely not guarantee against water damage or failure of their system.

It looks like the correct fastener was used, but not the correct spacing. It requires a maximum spacing of 12 inches between each fastener. Also, a ½ kerdi-board is required for 16 inch on center stud spaced structures, and a ¾ inch thick kerdi-board for 24 inch on center stud spacings. What is the stud spacing on that bench? From the screw pattern, I can't seem to tell at all. If I were to connect-the-dots, I should be seeing a grid pattern of 12 inch by 16 inch boxes (oir smaller, but nevert bigger) on a ½ thick kerdi-board, or 12 inch by 24 on ¾ inch kerdo-board. If you can't determine the stud spacing based on the screw pattern, that's the first sign of an improperly installed kerdi-board. If the board isn't installed correctly, then your tiles will not be properly supported for the weight of your tiles.

The improper screw pattern leads me to be suspicious of the thickness of the board and the stud spacing behind. If the studs are wider than 24 inches, you can double up Kerdi-board to create 1 inch thick boards by using unmodified thinset to glue them together, but if it's a single ½ inch and that spacing is greater than 16 inches, expect structural failure behind the tiles.

What concerns me as well is that I can see the fasteners in the first place.In the final product, I shouldn't see the fasteners at all. All fastener penetrations need to be covered with cut piueces of kerdi-band and more thinset.

Lastly, the wall opposite the wet wall not being covered is an issue. Just because the spray from the shower head doesn't hit that wall when you turn it on, doesn't meant it won't get wet when bouncing off a person using the shower. It also doesn't stop water from wicking up the tiles into the hardboard. If there is tile, then the kerdi needs to continue behind it. Besides, Kerdi is also a crack isolation membrane. How does it protect your tiles from cracking unless the tile is installed on it?

I wouldn't worry about air pockets too much. Surface membranes are designed to detach from substrate when it cracks to prevent the crack from telegraphing through the mortar and tile. As long as the embedded sections of the kerdi band does overlap, and the thinset isn't excessively thick, it should still perform. The goal is to get rid of as much of the air pockets when installing the kerdi, but it is impossible to eliminate all of them. As long as the pockets are small, few, and far between. There is a percentage of coverage that needs to happen, basically. And you are given 2 inches of play on either side of the seam for this.

After reading the comments, I probably should also mention that It is not necessary to have inside and outside corners installed, The Kerdi-kerec line are accesories developed for convenience, but not a necessity. Same waterproofing can be successfully achieved without them. You can see this in action when Schluter builds that kneewall with the kerdi-board in their video.

The shower is now finished. a little more was done to the schluter system, and a few people came and reassured us that it was done "better even than it needed to be". the tiles are in and it looks...okay. The grout is uneven, and the tiles don't line up well in the corners. it took forever, and the contractor admits the tile guy didn't do a very good job. my husband is fed up and doesn't think it's worth cutting the grout out in the places where the colour is uneven. he's just happy that when we did the shower-pan test, nothing leaked. Everyone tells me it looks fine and that I'm too fussy :-(

P.S. No, a permit to renovate the bathroom is (unfortunately) not required.

I would be scared to ask about setting after some work has already been done. That would be a waste of money :( I hope it works out well for you guys with all of this pressure and negative feed back

thanks Drina (and everyone else). I feel pretty badly about it. I wish I was more assertive. I feel like it's me against all these "knowledgeable" manly men with my husband caught in the middle. At one point, when I asked how long the guarantee was for, the contractor gave me his driver's license and demanded I make a copy so I could feel reassured that if there was any problem he would come and fix it. It was really weird - like he was saying I could come and "get" him if it started leaking. It's all been a really stressful experience, and I kind of regret googling "how to install schluter-kerdi system". sometimes ignorance IS bliss. I was so concerned about the waterproofing, that when I started complaining about the tile and grout I felt like an ass. I do feel that the shower is never ever going to leak, but it looks like we tiled it ourselves :-(

Sorry you feel that way, it is stressful just the thought of A remodel project..

You wish you were more assertive, And I wish I was less passionate about this exact subject.
I see this A lot and it scars the industry as A whole.. Try and enjoy your investment somehow. -regards.

"....1) is is okay to use kerdi board instead of ditra on the floor? My floor tiles are 2" x 2"...." - Lisa Jasper

No - you can not use Kerdi Board on the floor. It looks like you have Kerdi installed on the floor and not Kerdi Board. This is confusing since Kerdi Board has no Kerdi on it. See the foam bench and the corners. The colour is different.

What I would be most scared off is the fact that no inside or outside corners appear to have been used. I would fear leaks in all corners of this shower.

".....2) the kerdi band isn't stuck flat -- the edges in some spots are wavy. How "tidy" does the kerdi band need to be? I circled one area, but there are lots of these edges...." - Lisa Jasper

The Kerdi band should be smooth and flat - not wavy/

"...3) there is no membrane of waterproofing on the hardboard across from the "wet wall" after 5 1/2 feet up. is that because water doesn't really hit that area?..." - Lisa Jasper

That's pushing it but should be fine. Your real issues are the lack of proper corners on this shower. I hope you made the guy flood test his work prior to tiling the shower floor.

"...thanks in advance :-)
I know so little about this stuff, but when I watch videos (made by schluter-kerdi) everything looks so tidy and perfect - maybe that's not realistic...'''" - Lisa Jasper

It should look better than that and it's hard to tell but the wall stud spacing looks extreme and more than 16" I could not see if the screw heads where covered in the photos and in the one picture you can see that the screw and washer fitting where not covered. Cross your fingers and hope it's all OK. Not the best Kerdi Showcase....

Dear Lisa,

I am so sorry about your experience! Rest assured, you did EXACTLY the right thing asking lots of questions. (And posting clear photos on here for feedback). Continue to trust your gut.

As a woman in the industry, I only deal with guys who show respect to me and homeowners. If I get a whiff of them pressuring me or homeowners into choices that make the job easier for them rather than doing the work to proper technical AND aesthetic specifications (giving the client the look they want is just as important, otherwise all bathrooms would look the same), it's the last time we work together. There are excellent contractors out there, but many, not so great.

I've done a few Kerdi showers, and it is a pain to make sure you get proper coverage, the thinset isn't too thick, doesn't dry out or set up too quickly. It seems like an easy DIY project when you watch the Schluter videos, but in reality, until you've done a lot of them, it's messy, you make mistakes, things need to be fixed.

I am super particular (borderline obsessive) about technical specifications and finishing details (grout lines, tile cuts, caulk lines), and I feel your pain at just having just an OK tile job. It's disappointing.

Best,
Rebecca

Old post.

You're right. I thought it was 2016! Doesn't matter, really, since I get updates on my old posts all the time, and I appreciate the feedback/commiseration. :-)

I know this thread is a couple of months old now, but my two cents. Messy looking installation and some problems in my opinion.

I don't agree with using the kerdi board on the floor, the pre-sloped pans that come with the kits are fine but the kerdi wall board (not membrane or preslope boards) has too much give in my opinion. This could cause the tiles to crack or release when sufficient weight is applied in one place.

My second thought is that the contractor appears to have failed to overlap the kerdi seams in the corners correctly, especially where the pan meets the bench. This could have been handled by using the correct inside corner pieces or applying RedGard (which i would have applied on all the seams and the lower pan as a secondary backup).

The problem with the kerdi system is that if you aren't careful when applying 5" joint membrane strip on top of unmodified mortar, you could have voids and areas where the membrane wasn't applied evenly to the mortar below. This could allow water to seep through. It's critical to do a 24 hour water test after the base has setup.

Personally, I like the kerdi system but would have also applied redgard to all the joints and the entire pan as a backup (its only $50 a can). This would form a rubber membrane over the kerdi membrane as a secondary level of protection.

Another thing. Durarock board is total overkill when using such a waterproofing system. There is no reason to use it because it's heavy, hard to cut during installation and even more difficult to cut sections out and patch in case of failure or leaks. Plus its not water tight anyways.

for new readers of this topic, Ditra is used for floor tile installations. Kerdi is a waterproofing membrane and Kerdi Board is a waterproof building panel. We have used Schluter Kerdi for the past 13 years without a single failure. When installed properly, this product will not fail. Yes it can be messy as stated previously but to be effective does not require a tidy installation. The shower floor is installed correctly from what i can see. The walls do not show the screw holes to be covered in Kerdi fabric as they are supposed to. The one wall looks to have Kerdi Membrane half way up which is also a failure. For information on the correct installation procedures, simply go to the Schlutersystems website and you can even find a local certified installer there as well. I hope the project turned out to be a success.

The floor will have a sheet of kerdi over the slope floor pan. There should not be any wrinkles in the band and the empty wall needs a water proofing sheet as well. Go with your gut it is usually if your not haply make them fix it. I did my shower myself just like the video instruction