# Tile shower floor or wall first?



## Fachovec (Feb 12, 2011)

Anybody ?


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## woodman58 (Aug 22, 2010)

Floors first. That way the water will onto the tile floor and not have a chance to seep to the substrant below. Make sure and use grout chaulk at all corners.


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## Jackofall1 (Dec 5, 2010)

Welcome Fachovec, to the best DIY"r site on the web.

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Tile-a-Shower-Stall-Video-248853598

Heres a good vid on the subject, but I would do the floor first.

The problem with floor first, you must cover it to gaurd against thin set falling while doing the walls.

Mark


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## Jackofall1 (Dec 5, 2010)

woodman58 said:


> Floors first. That way the water will onto the tile floor and not have a chance to seep to the substrant below. Make sure and use grout chaulk at all corners.


Not!!! If your shower pan is done correctly water that permeates the tile and grout will be caught and drained, tile and grout is not water proof!!!

Mark


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## oh'mike (Sep 18, 2009)

Floors first--then walls-----just looks better to have the cuts on the wall and not showing at the floor.


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## JazMan (Feb 17, 2007)

I agree with both of you guys. BUT, I do the wall first with the exception of the last row at the bottom. Then tile the floor and at the same time set the last row. That way it looks the best, and I don't have to worry about working on newly installed shower floor tiles while doing the walls & ceiling. 

BTW, that video is not too bad, but I wouldn't mistake him as an expert from just that video. I know he wants you to go to other videos, perhaps buy one or two? 

First, he didn't go into how critical everything under the CBU and deck floor is in the building of a proper shower. He mentioned the membrane sandwiched between two layer of mortar...... The average DIY'er wouldn't understand much of that. How is the membrane installed? To the walls? To the drain? How are the corners folded? How did he go up and over the curb? OH-OH, I think he poked holes in the membrane when he install the Durock on the curb and the small wall under it on the inside. 

As for the layout of the tiles.......there isn't an easier shower to to. BUT, he managed to get the back wall wrong. It's not terrible, but it tells me he may not install tiles all the time. Notice the last tile on that back wall. Each is less then half. He must think that these tiles should always be smaller than the others...maybe? Go to the 3:32 mark of the video and see. He made the mid point of the wall the center of a tile. In this case he could have had a grout line there and the last tiles would have been almost whole. Still it looks ok. :whistling2:

Jaz


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## Bud Cline (Mar 12, 2006)

I do the wall first with the exception of the last row at the bottom. Then tile the floor and at the same time set the last row. That way it looks the best, and I don't have to worry about working on newly installed shower floor tiles while doing the walls & ceiling.

(I borrowed that from Jaz so I wouldn't have to type it myself.)

There are several things wrong with that video I would disregard it. Did you notice all of his tools where brand new and still had the labels on them?

In fact, that is the old way of doing showers and it is much more detailed and labor intense than the newer methods require.

Think about one of the Schluter methods.


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## JazMan (Feb 17, 2007)

Absolutely..........what Bud said! :thumbup:

Also check out http://www.schluter.com/ Also look at some of my photos here.http://picasaweb.google.com/tile4youinc

Jaz


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