Glass Tiles For Shower Walls
|Glass Tiles For Shower Walls – When most of the people enter their tile shower they rarely take into account the behind the scenes process that went into making that shower be effective. Unfortunately some contractors use this on their advantage to go cheap and save a couple of bucks. I have to say most contractors making the effort to do a good job, and some of these never learned the correct procedure and why these processes are important. The best approach to find the best tile contractor would be to keep these things explain the theory. If they can inform you the ins and outs behind the scenes, higher you’re going to get a fantastic job. If friends and family refer somebody to you personally it’s still OK must these questions, all things considered what do friends and family actually know in regards to the foundation of a tiled shower? They may have discovered a contractor who’s nice and easy to use and their brand new shower looks great, but when you don’t want to fight mildew in six months as well as the next 20 years you will ask a couple of of questions.
So let’s start at the start and explain common language and theory of your tile shower. First you have what is called a shower pan. This is a completely waterproof section that covers the shower floor or over the walls about 10″. This is either a hot mop, (the variety of layers of tar paper, hot tar, tar paper, hot tar and so forth) or it could be a PVC membrane that’s folded in the corners and over the dam. The most important part of this to suit your needs the homeowner to understand is naturally it’s completely waterproof but additionally it has what is called a sub-pitch. A proper sub-pitch is just a float of cement or similar product beneath the pan that produces a flow for the drain in addition to the shower pan. This is important because, say for instance your shower pan is flat (no sub-pitch) water will cross your grout making its way for the pan while showering. If this water forms a puddle through your tile floor instead of flowing for the drain it becomes stagnant and very soon can become mildew inside your grout. With a sub-pitch water that creates its way for the pan will continue to circulate for the drain always being replaced with fresh water. It is much like the difference between a pond along with a creek.
Next you have a vapor barrier that’s applied for the walls directly for the wood studs. This is normally a paper that features a tar held in the middle. This paper keeps moisture out of your walls. Why is this important? Not a lot of water penetrates the shower walls, but the substrate (the substrate is whatever surface your tile is stuck to, backer board, cement float, etc.) this surface are certain to get moist. Moisture will move from substrate toward the within wall, out over the grout and down for the pan, without vapor barrier paper you’re going to get small amounts of water into your wall cavity. So you say “why should I worry about this kind of little bit of water”. The reason is when you get a drop of water as part of your wall each time your shower is used, those drops add up as your wall doesn’t have any ventilation for evaporation, so eventually the wood is obviously moist. Do you know what loves moist wood? Termites, they love these conditions given that they never have to travel back for the ground to get a drink, they can just keep eating. It would be as you and I never having to go for the grocery store. Think of how productive we will be if that were the case.
Well that’s the theory of waterproofing behind your shower walls. When you stick to the following tips your brand-new shower has the best chance of looking wonderful for several years, without extreme maintenance.
So in closing, I hope this has been an enlightening along with understandable explanation of why a nicely waterproofed shower makes a difference. As a Contractor I welcome customers who will ask me these questions, it tells me they see the value of your job congratulations.