Interior decorators and house-proud individuals alike prefer design components that doubly serve the aesthetics and functionality purposes. Ceramic tiles thus feature high on their list. Ceramic tile backsplashes, ceramic tile flooring or ceramic tile shower trays. These days ceramic tiles find a place in almost all aspects of interior decoration.
Ceramic tiles are scratch-resistant, stain-proof and easy to maintain. This makes ceramic tile shower trays ideally suited for wet conditions. Furthermore, these days, ceramic tiles come in an array of colors and shapes to ensure that your ceramic tile shower trays match the décor of your bathroom.
Installing ceramic tile shower trays is a delicate business. One wrong move and you could end up flooding your bathroom with the water from the shower.
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Before you start with your project on installing ceramic tile shower trays, you have to build a slope into your shower floor to ensure that the water flows towards the drainage outlet.
Tips to install ceramic tile shower trays insist on applying a shower tray membrane liner that would act as a leak-proof foundation for the cement board and go under the ceramic tiles. This membrane liner has to be laid on the shower tray and fixed to the sides of the shower wall with staples or nails. Moreover, you need to make an opening in it to make way for the shower drain construction to pass through.
The ceramic tiles can be laid out on the shower tray after you have applied a layer of mortar atop the cement board. This will provide a stable base to the tiles.
Before you embark on the tilesetting job, have a guide of sorts with layout lines that will also ensure that you lay out tiles straight. While marking the lines you need to keep in mind that if it is a level tub to 1/8”, you have to make your way from the highest point of the tub, while it is the reverse when the tub is not level to 1/8”. This is done so that the space between the edge of the tub and the tile will not be prominent.
Installing ceramic tile shower trays is as much about technique as it is about aesthetics. Thus you have to see to it that the widths of the tiles at the border are all same and at least half a tile wide. Else the whole layout of the tiles will look lopsided. To do this, first mark a horizontal line right along the center. Then arrange the loose tiles ensuring that a joint is in line with the center mark.
If you see that a tile on the border comes up to less than half a tile wide, you can adjust the center mark half a tile’s width to the left or right.
Start your job of actually laying down the ceramic tiles from around the drain and work your way outwards.
As you go about installing ceramic tile shower trays, you will just have to follow some basic guidelines to ensure that you have a beautifully laid out and pleasing looking shower tray to show for your efforts.
by Manuel Kupka
