Shower tray smaller than recess - Tile Advice

[monkey3]

Hi,
​

I've posted this on the plumbers forum but it seems that I should really have posted here first...

I'm fitting a shower in an en suite and the gap for the shower tray is about 1060mm whereas the tray is 1000mm.

Further info about the room:
The entire room is already aqua boarded and the floor is fully marine ply. It will be tanked with a mapei shower tanking kit once the tray is in.
The tray is a low profile 1000 x 800 daryl tray and the waste is fitted below the floor.
The tray will sit on the floor on a bed of sand / cement.
I'll be tiling the floor and walls in travertine stone tiles and then grouting and sealing them.

The issue is obviously the gap next to the shower tray.
Ideally I'd like to tile it flush with the top to the tray. This would mean the shower door / enclosure could sit across the tray a tiles.
Alternatively I could lay the tile across the gap with a slight fall into the tray but this would mean a custom shower enclosure (maybe this is needed anyway as the recess is bigger than the tray and most recess doors come in tray sizes)

I sought advice from a showroom and fitting type store near me and they basically said "you can't do it, you need to build the wall out to match the size of the tray". To this I said I very much doubt that and eventually we got to some other options such as doing away with the Daryl base and simply building a ply base the full size and completely tanking and tiling it. Another option was the foam pre made base that can be cut to size (can't remember the name of it).

Essentially I wan't to do something similar to what daryl have as the image (the left hand side of the tray) on their bespoke enclosure page.
(I can't post a proper link to their page due to being a new member, but it is at the .co.uk variety of www.daryl-showers and the page would be product_pages/BESPOKE/bespoke-examples.asp)

Any advice you can give me would be very much appreciated.


cheers,

Russell.​

 

[Concrete guy]

You've got 60mm to pack. I'm assuming this is a 3 sided "alcove".

I'd build the wall out but take the opportunity to put some feature 60mm "alcoves" in the false wall that effectively become shelves.

Why is building out the wall 60mm not an option? It's the obvious thing to do as it solves the tray and screen issue in one hit and removes possible seal problems of a horizontal join at the tray base.

 

[monkey3]

Thanks for the response.

It certainly is a 3 sided alcove.

Some may say I was silly as I'd assumed this was not that difficult an issue to solve but everything is now plumbed in and there is already a feature alcove on the wall I'd have to build out to meet the side of the tray. The ceiling has also been plastered, scrim taped to the walls and painted.

I'm fairly certain there's a way to do this so that I won't have any issues. As I say, you can see that it's done on the Daryl website so it can't be that uncommon.

 

[Concrete guy]

It's not uncommon at all, it's just not the best solution.

If your choice is to leave walls alone and make up the 60mm then I'd not use tiles out of choice but would be looking for a product that blended into the (assuming) white shower tray. Something like 10mm UPVC soffit board.

Any tile placed on a horizontal plane, in a shower, making up an area will be a dirt trap and possible weak area. Whilst tanking will generally solve any possible water related issue, tiles and joins thereof will be dirt traps. So make it look like part of the tray rather than an extension of the tiling.

Got any pictures? It may inspire an alternative.

 

[monkey3]

OK, I sort of like the idea of the soffit board.
So essentially build the gap up to just below the level of the tray and then tank it onto the tray. Then, mastic the soffit board (or similar) onto the filled gap and overlap the edge of the tray.

However, I'm only really worried about a water ingress issue rather than dirt so much (although that is a factor I hadn't considered).

Anyway, images (the tray is not yet fixed in places and probably isn't pushed all the way up to the walls)...

 

[Concrete guy]

Okaaay.

Judging by the pipework the gap is under the shower head end, which is even worse.

Is the waste already run and fitted? If it's not I'd build out the wall on the right hand side and move the tray tight to the left.

I would be avoiding a "shelf" making up the gap at all costs though.

 

[monkey3]

That sounds bad.

The main shower head is actually a cloud head, the plumbing you can see there is the hand shower.
The waste is running under the floor and pretty much can't be moved from where it is.
The sink (a skinny one) will be on the left wall so to move the shower door to left, even by 60mm, would make it almost prohibitively narrow to get in and out of.

Although it is plumbed in, I could build out the wall on the left if I absolutely had to but I'd rather avoid that at all costs as it will push the project back and spoil the look we're going for. That said, I'd rather nothing leaked.

I'm sure you get these kind of "you're doing what???" questions all the time so I appreciate your patience and advice.

 

[Concrete guy]

Anything other than building the wall out to meet the tray is compromise, particularly when you consider the volume of water that will be flowing over the tray area as a whole.

 

[AliGage]

Think i'd be looking to loose the tray altogether and tile a fully wet area. Especially if you're looking to fit a wall to wall enclosure.

 

[Matt123]

OK, I sort of like the idea of the soffit board.
So essentially build the gap up to just below the level of the tray and then tank it onto the tray. Then, mastic the soffit board (or similar) onto the filled gap and overlap the edge of the tray.

However, I'm only really worried about a water ingress issue rather than dirt so much (although that is a factor I hadn't considered).

Anyway, images (the tray is not yet fixed in places and probably isn't pushed all the way up to the walls)...

View attachment 45119
View attachment 45120

How about building out the wall below the shelf only? You would then have a horizontal shelf all the way across. Or even better, inegrate the wall with the shelf so its' all one shelf all the way across. You fill your 60mm missing area below and make it look like it was on purpose. Otherwise, I'd just ditch the pan and make your own using concrete

 

[Matt123]

How about build out the wall from the floor up to the existing shelf. build it out as far as the shelf protrudes and make the whole horizontal surface (i imagine 32") a shelf. Now the reveal can be tiled and the protruding wall from floor to about 40" high or however high that shelf is looks like it was intentional

 

[AliGage]

How about build out the wall from the floor up to the existing shelf. build it out as far as the shelf protrudes and make the whole horizontal surface (i imagine 32") a shelf. Now the reveal can be tiled and the protruding wall from floor to about 40" high or however high that shelf is looks like it was intentional

I'd like to think that he has resolved the issue now as this post was originally 11 years ago 😂😂