Hello folks,

A quick question if I may. I'm a relatively experienced DIY'er and I'm just about to redo my ensuite bathroom. In it I have a shower enclosure (by which I mean three tiled walls and a glazed shower door over a tray) that is about 800mm x 800mm. I am planning to strip it right back to ply (and possibly replace that as well), replace the tray and more or less start from scratch. All three of the tiled walls are stud and sit on a timber joist floor (which I will also ply over).

Mrs eddie1980 has chosen a shower tray that has no upstands so I just want to be clear on whether my approach sounds like it will makes the most sense. I'm planning on laying the new shower tray with a gap of 3-5mm all the way around to the studwork. I'm then planning to fill that gap with silicone to the entire depth of the tray (about 45mm). I'm then planning on using a shower waterproofing kit (probably Mapei) to tank the ply around the three walls according to the relevant application instructions. After that, I'm planning on using a decoupling mat (probably ditra) on top of the tanking given that with all that timber it's likely to move a fair amount.

I'll then tile on top of that with large format tiles - probably 600mm x 300mm - most likely ceramic and use a waterproof grout/adhesive.

So, a few questions:

1. Presumably I don't need to worry about the joint between the ditra and the shower tray because that isn't performing a tanking function, so I can just butt that up and not worry about it?
2. Given that I'll only have the width of the tile finish to get the tape from the walls on to the shower tray, would people recommend also using some kind of upstand strip?

I'd welcome any other comments people have.

Many thanks

Eddie

Hi and welcome...I would'nt use ply for the walls, if your tanking I would use plasterboard or go the extra with hardie backer..

Thank whitebeam. Yep, I think I'll bin the plasterboard and spend the extra to do it properly.