Tiling Shower Walls Help
 

Ok so here is the situation. I am renovating a basement bathroom. I took it down to nothing and have built it up. The shower will be two framed walls and one exterior concrete wall.

the previous owner had taken mastic right to the concrete walls and attached the tiles. I scraped it all off with the thought that I would do 1/2" XPS, Kerdi liner over that and tile directly to that.

The reason I want to do this instead of framing a wall there is because of space. I dont have an extra 4" because of where the toilet flange is set and I dont want to move the toilet if I dont have to.

I got to thinking last night while I was looking at the xps. Will the tile cause the XPS to separate from the wall?

What do the experts think I should do?

Here are some pics.

One thought I had was to attach a few 1x3's to the concrete wall thru the XPS. I dont know if I need them but I'd sure hate to have that nice tile start pulling away from the concrete wall.

I am just guessing, but I don't think you would get any longevity by tiling directly onto the xps.

Could you put the 1X3's on the wall, tapconed thru the xps to the concrete, then apply concrete backer board to the 1X3s, then do the tiling?

Again, I'm just guessing. Hopefully my silly ideas will bring out an expert or two.

Yeah for some reason I thought that glue would be enough. Maybe because of how amazingly hard it was to get those other tiles off the wall. But I think you are right.

I'll probably end up using 1x3's and framing the wall.

In order to keep the wall to a minimum thickness, do you think I can get away with 1/4" backerboard?

We need Bud or Jazman to comment on that.

No joke. Where is Jazman when you need him.

I sent him a PM to ensure he shares his thoughts with us when he logs on.

No way is tile going to work out just stuck to foam!

Ok thats three votes against my original thought. :thumbsup: How now should I go about fixing it?

Do you think 1x3's tapcon'd to the concrete wall and nailed to the sill plate will work as framing?

Come on Joe, provide some ideas please.

Here I is! :laughing::wink:

If you fir out, You may want to go thicker than 1x3" It's only 3/4 thick.

But.......how about Kerdi Board?????? It's made for just this type of job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oV1riVyU0w

Take a look. This should solve your problems.

Jaz

Thats all we get today???

See, I knew we needed Jazman's help.

Also try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca1-t0Os4wo

Jaz