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Home Repair replacing a shower

Discussion in 'Homeowners Corner' started by christinaandrob, Mar 17, 2010.

  1. christinaandrob

    christinaandrob New Member

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    we live in an older pulte model and i desperately want to rip out our shower in the master bath and replace it. has anyone had this done recently? i have no idea how much something like this would even cost. would love some feedback.
     
  2. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    I'm doing this right now, DIY :) We had a leak (grout failure turns out) so I decided to rip out the crappy builder shower which the idiots installed directly over drywall *sigh*

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Now I'm looking for some design ideas and frameless shower enclosures... in the meantime we've moved to the kids bathroom.... hope to have this done in a few months... no rush for us.

    If you are looking for someone to do it, I would say it would start at about 4k and go up like crazy. It depends if you wanna keep your existing shower base, tub, etc, etc.
     
  3. Zeratul

    Zeratul Well-Known Member

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    It is hard to tell from your pictures, but did they use the green dry wall in there? I mean the one that is supposed to be used in bathrooms around water?

    And what about some kind of vapor barrier, is there one there? Should there be? And it looks like you are going to keep the existing pan?

    Also, my brother-in-law just got a semi-frameless shower door installed, looks nice. He used Sterling Glass and the prices were very good.
     
  4. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    they used normal drywall (yay mold) and no vapor barrier... good times! I'm going to tear out the shower base as well, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

    I will put up some hardi board or greenboard and use Schluter Kerdi membrane material for the shower walls and floor and Schluter Ditra for the floor. Even if the grout fails (I hope I'm not in the house still when it does =) ) there will be a PVC membrane behind it that will not let water through.

    I'm still searching around for pre-made enclosures since it's a 36x36 shower. If not, I'll probably call one of the local glass places for a nice frameless surround.
     
  5. Thunderchild

    Thunderchild New Member

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    If you a going to use the Schulter system, why not use the Kerdi-drain/shower system as well? Being 36x36 should be pretty easy if you are square.

    As for the glass enclosure to Dulles Glass and ask for Emre.

    Our builder did the same thing with the drywall, unfortunatly for me I had to remove ALL of the tile in the Master Bath along with the drywall attached to it because of the mold. I also had to remove the subfloor as well. You may want to remove the shower pan now and check if you have damage below. Goo luck to the remolder. If you want the tile work done, you can try Arlindo Medieros as he was the one who did mine.
     
  6. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    Yeah I plan on using their kit... I like that it's a square drain -- easy to tile around! Hopefully the sub-floor isn't compromised -- it was a pretty small leak so hopefully I can just spray a bleach solution on it to kill any mold.

    I just got told I'm being laid off so I'll probably be doing the work myself but will keep names in mind in case I land another job here soon ;)
     
  7. Thunderchild

    Thunderchild New Member

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    Sorry to hear about the job, hope you find something soon.
     
  8. napper

    napper New Member

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    If you had water damage, did your homeowner's insurance cover any of that? Just wondering...we're actually getting quotes right now to have our master bath replaced with a stand up shower. All because the bathtub moves and our grout never stays put. We've been told there's probably water damage and mold, but haven't gotten that far yet.

    Good for you doing it yourself, though! That won't be possible here, however.
     
  9. jdhauer

    jdhauer Active Member

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    We had out master bath entirely redone a couple of years ago because of mold/grout/drywall issues. There were ways to do it for less but we chose to replace all the tile on the floor as well as the shower and tub enclosure. We also went with a mid-range tile instead of one that cost less. We used Terry O'Neill and have been VERY pleased. We plan to use him again when we redo the hall bath in a few years with the same issues - for now, the kids just use the master bath for showers so why spend the money on something not being used? :) Let me know if you want to come over and take a look at it.
     
  10. Tech Head

    Tech Head New Member

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    How about sharing some costs? That would be helpful.
     
  11. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    We had minor water damage with our shower... it just starting to leak into the kitchen below (on the ceiling, you could see the drywall seams discolor) ... so it's not worth it to claim on homeowners insurance.

    As for your bathtub... the tile shouldn't touch the tub -- it should be caulked at the joint .. not grouted. It should be at least 1/8" of not 3/16" gap between the bottom of the tile and the top of the tub deck.... sounds like it wasn't installed correctly.... but it's not surprising :(

    On a side note, we once had a major leak from our ice-maker line in the kitchen which flooded our basement ceiling and caused ~5k of damage -- we did claim that. =)
     
  12. Thunderchild

    Thunderchild New Member

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    Some costs/estimate depend on what you are willing to do. My neighbors and I both did all of the demo work and replaced the subfloor. We had Arlindo Medieros do the tile work as he was the cheapest for what we wanted done (Shulter System). We got quotes from Weller and Mr. O'neill as well. O'neill was the most expensive, by $6000-$7000, and that was with me doing the demo. Weller had a great price and we were thinking about having them do the work, but they were going to add subflooring that I thought would make the floor too high so we didn't use them.

    Arlindo was easy to work with and his price was good. We bought our tile from Conestoga and the price was decent, but it looks great. No compliant really. Arlindo also had a couple of ideas that we hadn't thought of and we went with all of his suggestions as they made sense and added to the design of the bathroom.

    The shower enclosure was done by Dulles Glass (Ask for Emre). They were the best price and were very professional. They chipped one of the tiles when doing the install and had no problem;no hassles with having it repaired.

    I don't remember the exact cost of the remodel, it wasn't cheap and it wasn't too expensive.

    Good luck
     
  13. christinaandrob

    christinaandrob New Member

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    thanks for the info, boomer. my gut tells me that we have mold behind the shower too (tile seems to be directly on the drywall).
     
  14. ceis

    ceis New Member

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    We put in an all copper shower. Un-coated copper is a natural anti-bacterial material and theoretically will drastically reduce future maintenance. Plus it looks really cool.
     

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  15. redon1

    redon1 aka Aphioni

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    GORGEOUS! I want it! how much? please pm me if you don't feel like saying it to the world... ;)
     
  16. latka

    latka Active Member

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    I want it too!
     
  17. napper

    napper New Member

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    The floor tile is exactly what I'm wanting. I had that in my house before moving here and loved it!
     
  18. ceis

    ceis New Member

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    I would be happy to share costs for anyone who has serious interest. We did the installation ourselves so it was definitely less than paying someone else for a tiled installation (and no future maintenance on grout). Not too hard to do yourself (okay, there was the incident where water started pouring out of the light fixture below but that is another story). We started with the replacement of the ant infested moldy shower and it morphed into a new cabinet top, fixtures, lights, floor, etc. Did the floor ourselves as well (never done that before- actually that was when the water incident started . . .) Frigo Designs www.frigodesigns.com provided the copper panels and pan.
     
  19. doberman

    doberman New Member

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    I second the recommendation of Terry ONeil. He did ours a couple months ago, and we were very pleased. We had the same issue as others, the builders did a poor job and the grout leaked.

    Our biggest challenge was with the shower door. Our opening size was non-standard. We bought one through Home Depot that was specified to fit, but it did not. After several phone calls with Kohler, the manufacturer, we got our money back. We ended up having a custom door built.
     
  20. nchhomes

    nchhomes New Member

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    I do bathroom remodeling in the Ashburn area and I'm a resident. If your looking at and estimate please let me know. I do custom shower pans as well. The glass enclosure can be added after the job is completed. If you want to talk about it give me a call.

    NCH Home Solutions LLC
    703-975-8100
    nheyn@nchhomesolutions.com
     

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