Aesthetically I prefer a tiled shower floor as I don't like the stark contrast - but my new remodel is deliberately not "modern' so that's not where I was going with the design at all.

Some people love the pans because they minimize upkeep but I don't have particular grout issues - if my grout ever becomes completely disreputable I would have a professional come in and restore it.

Speaking somewhat controversially, I associate prefab white pans with lower end prefab showers. I think there are some people who have installed Corian pans so obviously shower pans are not necessarily a lower cost solution - but I just think tile shower floors are prettier.

I have pretty, tiled shower floors, and I’d trade them in a heartbeat for solid surface. I’d decorate the rest of the bathroom with pretty tile, but save the cleaning and I suspect, the increased risk of leaking.... when did you ever notice someone else’s shower floor anyway? That’s how I look at it.

I designed my bathrooms (and everything else) solely for ME. I get tremendous pleasure when I am in my shower and admiring my beautifully tiled Calacatta basketweave tiled floors:-). I also see the floor every time I walk in my bathroom and I love how it complements the basketweave tile bathroom floor.

My shower floor was tested at least twice for waterproofing including a mandatory 24 hour flood test so I'm not worried about it leaking :-).

However OP seems to prefer the aesthetics of a white prefab shower pan so whatever rocks one's boat aesthetically is what one should go with :-).

Mosaic tile, if for no other reason than safety! Have it installed by a professional and keep the grout sealed (not a big job). I also agree that mosaic tile can be very pretty.

It may depend upon the shower wall tile. I used a patterned tile and had a heck of a time finding something that did't look too busy to put on the shower floor. Both have their advantages.

Currently remodeling 2nd home, and I insisted on the tile floor because I did not think the pan was high enough on the edge compared to what I have in home number one. The tile store people helped is select the mosaic tile for the floor taht was the same tile as the big ones for the walls.

Is tile in general less slippery than solid surface shower pans? I honestly don't know, but would assume those shower pans are designed to be non-slip.

And I have learned on these forums that tile and grout is in no way waterproof, as would be a solid surface shower pan. Any waterproofing in a tile shower would be a subsurface system like Kerdi or those other systems whose names escape me.

I am quite interested in this topic, so I will keep following along.

Mrs. S, you can get a shower pan that leathered, so it's not slippery at all.

Following

I went with a solid roll in shower floor for the master - just in case down the road. The surface is leathered and non-slip for ergonomic reasons. Even though I don't need to roll in yet, I'll say the flooring is not slippery at all - I've been living here nearly a year and a half.

You could tile it but for me it was just not something important for me to do. The shower floor is not a focal point of the room, and it really is not ugly - I use the shower curtain most of the times, anyway. (Partially because I want to show the shower curtain...)

Of course tile looks higher end, however, I don't think it's an important place to stretch the budget. Regardless of budget, my husband would vote for a non-tiled shower bottom over leakage and cleaning issues. It was a super easy compromise for me to make. The savings spent on higher visual impact choices for me like faucets.

Thanks very much for the responses, which have given me much to mull over. If this shower re-do does take place, it will come as the result of a leak repair, and I'm gonna want to ensure we don't ever have to deal with this again. The non-tiled shower pan has a number of compelling pluses in my opinion, although I'm also picturing a mosaic tile as floor in this shower, and I can see how that could be a beautiful (albeit completely different) option.

We have one of each. I prefer the shower pan. Thoughts:

- We removed the tub in our girls' bathroom /replaced with a same-sized, all-tiled shower. It looks great, but I don't particularly like the feeling of the sloped floor towards drain.

- The all-tile shower was more expensive (because of more labor).

- We went with a shower pan in the master. It is almost completely flat and feels better underfoot.

- The shower pan is easier to keep clean.

I did tile on my last one because it was an odd size. My preference is for a nice cast iron pan. Why? Mostly because you never know if your shower installer is going to screw up and your odds for error jump hugely with a site-built shower pan.

Also easier to clean. I don't mind the look, either.

I chose a cultured marble pan. Our previous tiled shower floor developed water intrusion issues and we weren't able to use it, as the mortar bed was disintegrating. No regrets, but then I also used a solid surface for the walls and the whole makes sense together. Still, I like easy and a solid pan is definitely that.

I'd only do a solid surface, personally. I have a Kohler cast iron pan. Others have loved their cultured solid surfaces too. The slope is pre-engineered, no worry about the installation of the pre-slope and water proofing. I've seen too many nightmares on GW/houzz. There are many excellent tile professionals on this forum I'd trust with my shower, but they don't live very close, lol. So my bathroom is done with my cast iron pan and I LOVE it.

In our rebuild I currently have allocated space for a 60"x60" shower (5ftx5ft), though I'll shrink as low as 48"x60". But it seems these 1-piece bases max out at 42" wide and most are much smaller than that. I can't find anything big enough in the pre-fab.

I'll be having a conversation with my builder to start detailed design of this soon, and I'm going to point him towards https://customeps.com/ as a possible option over the traditional troweled-mortar approach, but that'll still end up with a tiled floor. But I had tiled before, and I rather liked it. I agree that the pre-fab looks a little, well, pre-fab to me, but has obvious benefits too.

I did tile on my last one because it was an odd size.

Yeah, if your shower isn't a nice, standard rectangle ... you're not using a shower pan. That is a weakness of the shower pan.

Mostly because you never know if your shower installer is going to screw up and your odds for error jump hugely with a site-built shower pan.

Yes, we're read many, many stories of shower problems ... either functional problems or badly laid tile. It's easy to say, "Hire a great installer!" But how do you know ahead of time?

At the recommendation of a friend, I hired a guy to do my hall shower (this was several years ago), and I loved his work. When my master bath shower started leaking, I called him again -- he's retired. Bummer. Similarly, if you've hired a company, you can't know that the guy who came to your house last time will be the one who comes this time.

Fear of installation problems is a very real concern.

In our rebuild I currently have allocated space for a 60"x60" shower (5ftx5ft), though I'll shrink as low as 48"x60". But it seems these 1-piece bases max out at 42" wide and most are much smaller than that.

I'd re-think a 60"x60" space; bigger isn't automatically better. It's so wide that you may feel "lost" in the space. Once you're elderly, you'll not be able to reach grab bars on both sides at once. 48" wide is still quite large, but you'd be able to reach the grab bars.

If you want to go with a shower pan and can't find larger than 42", you could always do the pan ... and then an 18" bench running the length of the shower.

Hmmm, the 18" bench with a pan is an intriguing idea. It'd still be 60" wide because I'd like to go for door-less (I had that before), but the depth can definitely go down. Right now it's just a big square on the plans, with a target to start getting into the details soon.

We did a 60x42 Kohler cast iron base in our old house. I loved it and wish I still had it rather than the tile in our new house. Easier to clean and it was not slippery at all, contrary to some concerns above. It also felt like a very roomy shower. Too big without a door and it gets drafty....we had a big shower room with tub inside in a rental house, maybe close to 60x60, and I always felt cold and exposed showering there.

Annoyingly, Kohler's website no longer lists a cast iron in a 60x42, but I did find a nice acrylic with a rear-center recessed drain. And available in Canada. I'm going to add that to my list to discuss with the designer.

Previous owners installed an acrylic shower pain in our ensuite shower. Not slippery at all but I hated it with every fibre of my being because it was such a pita to clean. So many grooves! So. much. scrubbing. Finally discovered/concocted a no muss, low effort way to clean it (Dawn liquid soap + baking soda, let sit for 30 mins under a wet microfiber cloth) and now tolerate it. When contemplating the ensuite redo, I was eyeing cast iron pans. If I had the money and access to a top notch tile installer, I'd consider a curb-free shower with large tile floor.

Yeah, curbless won't work for us because our master bathroom is huge. But I hear you about the cleaning, because we have the added annoyance of being on well water with some iron in it, which adds that extra problem to cleaning. More pondering required.

I have a beautiful marble hex floor and while it gave me great delight when we built our home a few years back, I would now do a shower pan. Cleaning the grout monthly is one of my most dreaded household jobs.

I don't think Kohler ever made a 42" wide cast iron shower pan. That might be a typo, above by HKO HKO. I bought my 60x36" shower pan and that was the largest I believe. They may make an acrylic pan that is larger, I don't know. I don't know why anyone would want a shower larger than 60x36, unless they took showers with others, then larger would be better. I suppose the wall sprayers would require a larger shower.

Very grateful for this thread - we're starting an renovation/addition that will involve redoing 2 bathrooms and adding a new master. It's so helpful to have a variety of perspectives on what works best / what's worth the upgrade etc.

I haven't found group upkeep to be an issue at all. I deliberately chose a gray color that blended with the tile and so it will cover a multitude of sins versus white tile or other extreme grout color which requires meticulous upkeep.

I don't know anyone with modern grout who needs to scrub it down every month.

@enduring, yes you are right. We must’ve had the 60x36. No longer in that house so can’t measure. Kohler 60x42 is acrylic. Still, even that size felt big.

@enduring, yes you are right. We must’ve had the 60x36. No longer in that house so can’t measure. Kohler 60x42 is acrylic. Still, even that size felt big.

My shower is an odd size and the company made a custom pan with the cultured marble material. It's a textured matte white, so doesn't look like the typical vanity material with the wisps of color and a shiny surface. Of course, a pan's practicality decreases when the area is huge and you have to get it into position!

I don't understand why zero entry wouldn't work. You need about 4 feet for the drain slope, anyway. Another foot will allow for a more gradual height change and a configuration allowing wheelchair access. I wish I had the room to plan for age/injury limitations.

Take a look at Elphaba's bathroom/shower. Tiled pan, large 5x5 shower, no door. I've always loved Mydreamhome's 4x8 curbed shower, scroll for her pics.

We are redoing our master bathroom. Replacing the tub with a shower. I had my heart set on tiling the shower floor until our General Contractor mentioned the down side. Over time grout start breaking down. After reading all the comments on Houzz about tiling your shower floor vs floor pan, I made up my mind. Shower pan it is. Our GC gave us some good advice.

Thinking through the pros and cons of a solid base vs tiled shower floor too. I haven't seen any cast iron in the size we need (42x42 or possibly 42x48). There's a solid surface available that might work for us and it has a 'soft sand' textured surface. I'm kinda wondering if that surface would be like an entire floor of grout in terms of catching dirt and grime during normal use. If the non-slip surface of a one piece base is going to require frequent cleaning, that would defeat the purpose for me. For any of you with experience with textured solid shower pans, do you find that the base 'grabs' gunk during normal use or does it mostly rinse away during showering?

While I don't have the coefficient of friction numbers in front of me, a solid surface shower would be as good as or better than tile. When you add in the ease of cleaning, sanitation, lack of maintainence and lack of grout, the solid surface shower pan is the clear winner. Do your walls too.

Ford or Chevy. You pays your money and you takes your chances. As a tile mechanic, I prefer a quality tile floor...done properly and totally waterproof....but, that's just me.