As I type this I'm wondering if anyone is going to laugh but sometimes people will tell me one thing and I'll believe another until the whole topic becomes cloudy.
I went to pick up some sheets of hardibacker for a wall tiling project in a bathroom shower nook and the guy in the flooring section proceeds to tell me that I do not need to apply a vapor barrier to the stud wall with hardibacker as long as I tape and mortar all my seams. It sounds plausible but I don't know... He said it would trap moisture between the backerboard and the plastic. Likewise, I told him that one of the shower walls is an exterior wall and he said to use unfaced insulation so as not to trap moisture between the backboard and the paper on the inside face of the insulation.
Is there truth to this or should I disregard and use plastic? I have some 4 mil clear plastic I was thinking of using.
And, I've just been reading that some people are against applying hardibacker directly to studs. Sometimes I see people saying to use greenboard first, then backer. My studs are 16" OC and the backer I have is 1/4 " thick. Will this be sturdy enough?
I went to pick up some sheets of hardibacker for a wall tiling project in a bathroom shower nook and the guy in the flooring section proceeds to tell me that I do not need to apply a vapor barrier to the stud wall with hardibacker as long as I tape and mortar all my seams. It sounds plausible but I don't know... He said it would trap moisture between the backerboard and the plastic. Likewise, I told him that one of the shower walls is an exterior wall and he said to use unfaced insulation so as not to trap moisture between the backboard and the paper on the inside face of the insulation.
Is there truth to this or should I disregard and use plastic? I have some 4 mil clear plastic I was thinking of using.
And, I've just been reading that some people are against applying hardibacker directly to studs. Sometimes I see people saying to use greenboard first, then backer. My studs are 16" OC and the backer I have is 1/4 " thick. Will this be sturdy enough?
