# Shower drain location



## svaic00 (Jul 2, 2012)

I am in the process of finishing our basement. Attached is a plan view of the location of my rough in plumbing, along with a proposed floor plan for the new bathroom. Our rough in plumbing was installed when the house was built. It has the appropriate drain/pipe sizes for the toilet, sink, vent, etc. My question is in regards to the location for the drain for the shower.

Right now there is an 8" square hole in our concrete floor slab, filled with gravel. If i follow the plan shown on the framing plan, this is good for using a standard size tub/shower combo, with the drain at the front end of the tub. 

Questions I have are:

1. What if i wanted to go with just a tiled shower (no tub). Do i need to move the drain out to the center of the shower, or can i leave it at the front end, and just have the drain pan sloped towards the front? Do they make pans like this, or would i need to make a custom one?

2. What if i want to move the entire shower to the left, do i also need to move the drain to the left, or would it be possible to have an off centered drain in a tiled shower? 

3. What are the typical spacings between the sink to toilet, and toilet to shower? I believe i read somewhere that you want 15" or 18" min. on each side of the toilet. 

Thanks in advance


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## TarheelTerp (Jan 6, 2009)

svaic00 said:


> What if i wanted to go with just a tiled shower (no tub)


if a custom pan you can put the drain (almost) anywhere.
if a prefab pan not so much



> ...you want 15" or 18" min. on each side of the toilet.


you want no less than 15" to the C/L of the toilet... 
more is better[/quote]


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## oh'mike (Sep 18, 2009)

It looks like that was roughed in for a bathtub--Is the drain and P-trap 2 inch?

You will be much happier with the finished shower if you get the drain centered---The typical pitch for a shower floor is 1/4" per foot---

If the drain is at one end--making the pan and having an even cut of tile at the wall/pan juncture make for a deep well at the end--or a wall that has a very lousy looking sloped or even stepped tile at the bottom.

Rent a jack hammer---move the drain--you will hate it if you don't.


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## Bonzai (Oct 29, 2010)

Off centre drains for showers are very common ... almost all of the ones we do (unless they are square) are off centre. We mainly use the Schluter Kerdi shower kit system, but there are several options.

http://www.schluter.com/8_4_kerdi_shower_kit.aspx

One of the important aspects of the install is to ensure that the lip around the perimeter of the shower pan is at the same elevation so that the tile on the wall starts at the same height. This shower kit is made to go in place of a bath tub i.e. where a bath tub is being replaced by a walk-in shower.

The slope between the drain and the wall where the faucet is will be slightly steeper than the rest of the shower floor because it has to cover the same vertical rise in a far shorter distance (basic geometry), but unless you're pinned to the wall (oohh errr Mrs) that's not somewhere you normally stand so I have never encountered this as being a problem.

Another important aspect of a shower tray such as this is that you need to use smaller mosaic tile in your design for the floor as it has to be able to follow the contour ... ideally 2"x2" or smaller. Watch for glass mosaic though as many are not rated for supporting a persons weight.

There is another option which is a linear drain ... like a trough basically. A big advantage is that you have one continual slope towards the drain (which goes across the whole width of the shower pan) so you can use larger format tiles as they don't have to follow a curved 'bowl' shape as in the other method. However this type of install has other complexities and is not typically for the budget minded. There's another guy on here from BC who can tell you all you want to know about linear drains if interested.

I have attached an example of a Schluter shower nearing completion so you can see how the position of the drain and the slope of the floor looks ... it's only steep enough to allow water to drain, not so steep that you feel like falling forward.


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## wctekkk (May 29, 2012)

your fine on tile shower if u have 2" drain. note tile floor shower


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