My plumber in Phoenix mentioned he never uses a standard shower pan anymore.

He was fixing a leak in my guest bath and said, 'A custom mortar bed with a liner is the only way to guarantee no water gets through.' I'd always just picked the pre-made pans from the big box store without a second thought. Has anyone else made that switch and noticed a real difference in long-term performance?

4 comments

4 Comments

kai_burns7313d ago

My old boss in Tucson made us do all our shower floors with a mud bed and liner. We had maybe two callbacks for leaks in ten years, and both were from a bad glue job on the drain, not the pan itself. The pre-formed ones always seem to fail at the corners or where they meet the wall after a few years. It takes more skill and time to build it right, but it's a much more solid foundation.

the_viola13d ago

Totally agree, that old school method just builds in a safety factor you don't get with the pre-fabs.

abby_martinez13d ago

My uncle had a mud bed shower put in back in the 80s and it's still perfect, which kinda proves the point @the_viola made about that safety factor. The pre-sloped foam pans just don't have that kind of track record in my experience. It's one of those things where the extra work upfront saves a ton of headache later.

angelam8013d ago

Hold up, gotta push back on this. Those foam pans have gotten way better with modern seals and integrated curbs. A good installer can make one bulletproof in half the time of a mud job. @kai_burns73 had a great crew, but most guys today aren't trained on mud work and a bad mud bed is way worse than a good foam pan. The tech just moved on.