How To Install The Tile Shower Drain

The tile shower drain is tricky and much of the tricky part is buried in the shower pan.  You see the whole shower pan is designed to route all the water to the drain.  All the water includes the part that leaks right through the floor.  That happens because tile floors are never waterproof.  Some water ends up passing right through the floor.

The drain includes holes that are on two layers.  The top layer you can easily see.  The lower layer is down in the floor.

Here's how it works. 

Usually the drain is attached to the drain pipe so the drain base sits right on the subfloor.  Then you build a very important layer.  It's a sloped mortar layer that slopes at about 1/4 inch per foot from the base of the drain up on the shower walls. 

Then over that sloped layer is installed the real trick to a shower floor.  A waterproof sheet membrane is set over the sloped mortar and then attached right on top of the drain base.  That liner is sealed to the base so the water that makes it to the liner is routed right to the lower drain holes.

After the liner is fitted in all the corners, which is tricky, the next layer is installed.

The next layer is another mortar layer that is the base for actually laying the floor tiles.  So it's a mortar layer, then the liner membrane, then another mortar layer.

But wait...

Wouldn't the mortar stop up the lower drain holes?  How could you have drain holes that are down inside a "solid" masonry floor?

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Learn more about how the tile shower drain actually does work at our website.

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