Which backer board for bathroom

Besides all these instances when using tile backer boards is recommended, The Tile Association has recently brought attention to the latest revision to the British Standard. One of the changes was in regards to backing:.

The Tile Association has explained that plywood has been removed from the new Standard as a recommended substrate for wall tiling, because of the wide variance in the quality of plywood as a Tile Backer on the UK market. The decline in the quality of plywood is mirrored by the rise of specially developed tiling Backer Boards.

These are stable and moisture resistant, as well as being more environmentally friendly and so are not only being favoured by companies and consumers but also by the British Standard and The Tile Association. At Tile Fix Direct we stock tile backer boards from Marmox, Orbry and Schluter — see the full range and order online here. All rights reserved. For Tiling For tile installation to be a success a suitable substrate must be used. I have a couple questions about Schluter. Now I have to decide what the replacement will be.

He allows that coating the Hardibacker with Red Gard might be a good idea. One thing is clear to me: success with Schluter is a function of your expertise with thinset and a trowel.

Poor thinset work? What do you think? And the Redgard is essentially a must. As far as the Schluter Kerdi Shower System goes, they have good videos and instructions for their system.

Schluter has never claimed that thinset mortar is waterproof. What they claim is that their system is waterproof. This claim has held up over the years and the fact that other companies have followed suit is further proof that it works.

However, in my experience, water wicking up the walls during a flood test has never been an issue. The water is usually splashing around a little bit at least and it shows on the sides of the walls. This is most noticeable on Wedi Board showers because they are dark gray and the coating is cementitious. What I am concerned about with a flood test is the water level.

Water sitting in the shower pan is a good way to keep other people out of there. Schluter has a FAQ section on their website that goes into the modified vs unmodified thinset reasoning.

Furthering my point is the fact that they just came out with their own line of modified thinset mortar called All-SET that can be used with their products. Thanks for the quick reply.

Is there a reason NOT to use it? I do care about never, ever having to worry about the shower ever leaking been there, done that. It just seems so light and easy to work with. Is there a functional down side? I say choose one or the other. If you are using Kerdi for the shower you can use Kerdi fix on all the seams as extra insurance.

This would accomplish the same thing as using Redgard. Additionally, this practice would probably be ok with Schluter I would think. Pick up some drywall shims in the sheetrock section. You staple then to the studs to build out the Hardibacker. Use the drywall shims to make the wall flat.

When you are done coat the Hardibacker with Redgard or similar waterproofing. Great informative article. What thickness of the foam backer board do I need to use? It will go directly onto my timber studs… Ta. The best thing to do on this is to call tech support for the brand of foam board that you are using.

I think it will depend on the timbers. Most importantly is to find out how they want it fastened. A call is the best way to find out. I am replacing a tub and adding a shower.

I have removed all but the top foot of green board in the alcove. I plan to install 4mil vapor barrier then hardibaker. Do I have to sand the paint off the green board that remains or should the hardibacker go to the ceiling? The mortar will stick to painted drywall just fine. We are planning to remodel our bathroom and remove the tub and have a tiled shower installed.

The contractor uses John Mansfield GoBoard and sealant. Should we be concerned that this product has not be around very long? We are searching the internet for feedback but really have found very little about this particular product. Is it as good as the Schluter system, etc.? What are your thoughts please? Also, any concern with keeping the shower drain in the approximate same position as it was with the tub?

Is it just a matter of ascetics? I would rather not be standing on the drain. The big advantage of Johns Manville GoBoard versus competing products like Kerdi Board or Wedi Board is that it costs quite a bit less while still providing the same, or similar benefits. This is where a system like Schluter or Wedi is an advantage as they make and guarantee an entire shower. As far as a drain goes, whether it remains offset or is moved to the center is more a matter of personal preference.

I prefer them centered because I find the slope angles to be a bit steep when the drain is at one end. With it centered the slope is much more gradual and consistent. But it is in the middle and will be stepped on. I have installed a traditional Oatey PVC pan liner per the manuf. I am at the point of deciding what backer board to use.

I see your comments about Wedi and it looks like a very good option. Do you know if you can do this? The Wedi site does not give any guidance nor do they provide a customer service phone number to ask questions like this. Everything seems to be email. Yes, Wedi panels can be used with a traditional mid pan and liner.

Typically Wedi panels are used with their foam shower pans, like you mentioned, but also can be used with a mud bed with a waterproofing membrane on top. They have a product called Wedi Subliner Dry for this purpose. You could also use Wedi wall panels with a mud pan and liner.

The stiffer wall board can help keep The bottom of the board that overlaps the liner from flexing. Will this be okay after applying thinset and tile or should I take off the permabase in the areas of concern and apply a couple supporting cross studs? Waterproofing, in the grand scheme of things, is money well spent. If you want to do the minimum then you could install some plastic or tar paper behind the studs and still be ahead.

I am tiling an uninsulated basement floor. Can I apply foam board over the concrete floor using thinset, then install heating cables over this, then thinset the tiles over this?

It seams to be the way its done in England where they have been using electric heating cables extensively for a long time. Are there any shower wall or pan waterproofing methods that would cause problems with thinset adhesion to the backing surface? Yes, this is good. The best thing is to use high-quality thinset mortars and get good mortar coverage on the back of the tiles. Can NobleSeal or similar be installed over Densshield. My father in-law started a remodel of a walk-in shower and had put up Densshield before passing away.

Noble tends to be more conservative with what they recommend as substrates. Thank you for prompt reply. Thanks again.

FYI, while some of the foam that you see in your local building centers may Be from the same manufacturers you can easily tell who provides what just by the colors of the foam they are not the same. While they are extremely similar and have the same properties, some foam boards are either too rigid or too flimsy. I am a sales rep for wedi Corp and our manufacturer makes our foam specifically for us and to our specifications.

A foam board that is too rigid can actually crack with normal movement in a structure and foam that is too weak will have too much flex in the wall cavities.

So to answer that question, while there are many similarities, there are vast differences. If it was as simple as painting a waterproof coating over a cheaper foam, we would be able to do that and offer a cheaper product, cost wise. Hi Dennis. Thanks for your comment and I appreciate your input. This is a very good article. That is why drywall of any kind failed horribly, giving tile a bad reputation. Many people still are resistant to tile because of it.

The Building Codes finally banned the use of drywall of any kind behind a shower around I have never been a fan of the fiber cement, or cement boards, as you pointed out, they soak in moisture. I have demode showers with Durrock, and it had literally turned to sand on the lower part that was constantly wet.

Since then, all the Gypsum Board manufacturers have tile backer boards. Sclurter was the pioneer in the waterproof backer-boards and decoupling membranes. I attended a Schluter seminar around I have torn out many showers on concrete, and they were solid. I appreciate the response.

Everyone is going to have their preferences but most important is doing things correctly. A lot of times people think the gypsum tile backers are ready to go once they are installed. But, like you mentioned, extra work is needed to get them to be waterproof. Just loading them in the house vs. Is this accurate? I essentially want to tile the whole shower and not the ceiling. Do you see any issue with this design? Is there another option you recommend?

I could potentially go with the Wedi Primo vs. You really only need Wedi Sealant up to the shower head, or so. You would need to tape and mud any seams above this point with thinset and mesh tape if you decide to forego the sealant at this level. To accomplish this there is supposed to be plywood subfloor that is installed in between each floor joist.

Wedi explains what their requirements are for this in their instructions for Ligno. Hopefully that will make things more clear. Please let me know if you have further questions on this.

We are redoing a small bathroom. Removing the existing enclosure and tiling the walls. My question is whether we should use Densshield behind the tile or Duralock? Someone told me what Densshield has an extra barrier to it. However, it would need an additional waterproof layer to stop water from penetrating through. A lot of times people will use a paint-on liquid waterproofing which is fairly economical.

Thank you sir! This is easy to remedy. As long as your screw head is flush with surface just take a stiff edged putty knife or 5 in 1 tool and scrape the protruding material around screw head off flush. It helps to have a sharp edge on putty knife and may require scraping in different directions bit usually it will remove it.

We are building a shower in our downstairs bathroom and have purchased Weidi Board for the walls in the shower along with their screws, sealant etc. Our question is how much of a gap should we leave between the bottom of the Weidi board and the top of the base?

And should we notch out the back of the Weidi board so it sits flat with the transition from the flange to the wall studs?

We are looking to start this part of the job today and your valued advise would be greatly appreciated. These are just my opinions. We are reinstalling a new adhesive shower enclosure that was previously glued to green board. I believe the green board was installed with not enough clearance from the shower pan as mold and mildew crept up the existing boards. When we tore out the existing enclosure it pulled most of the paper from the boards so I would like to replace them.

My question is, what material do you recommend using if we are planning on replacing the enclosure with adhesive panels? Thanks in advance. I stumbled on this site after reading about backerboards and which one to use. I have used Kerdi membrane on hardie backer but I have become a little impatient with weekend diy work at home. So I am reading to take the plunge into the foam boards. My problem is that I just bought the schluter niches, and surround flange, etc.

I did see some Goboard and Durock foam board, and Wedi. Am I tiling the entire bathroom and bedroom? I know, there is a question coming… here it is. Can I then mix wedi board with schluter niches? They same question would apply to USG Durock foam board. I just want to get this over in a week or two or less. Did you get the question? Great site, I do appreciate how you explain the differences and convince me to move into Foam board. You might be interested in my posts on building shampoo niches.

I just went to a trade show recently and everyone either has a foam panel or is coming out with one. Hopefully, the prices will come down accordingly. I will check how to build those and saving money always makes the mrs. Does this have advantages or disadvantages over the Kerdi for wall or flooring applications?

Or is any membrane overkill on a floor maybe just a liquid sealer over cement board? So the two different products, Kerdi and Ditra, have two different uses. So as far as Ditra vs cement board for floors, it just depends on what you want to accomplish. But they both perform essentially the same function: to provide an underlayment for tile over a subfloor. However, it has a minimum size requirement of 2 inch x 2 inch. Is there an option to wedi pans for the shower floor?

Second floor bathroom with sub floors? Some of these companies will make custom size foam pans, also. Take a look at my Shower Waterproofing Crash Course for more info on this system. I was planning on using DensArmor Plus paperless drywall panels outside the wet areas. DensArmor is made with a fiberglass facing.

If the seam will be covered with tile then I would just use alkaline resistant mesh tape. The data sheet says it can be covered with typical wall coverings, including tile, so thinset and alkaline resistant tape would work fine, I would guess. Emailed tech support and they say that yes the fiberglass facing on the panels is alkali resistant and yes it will take tile mortar without degrading.

Sounds like a sure thing. What is the minimum this wall should extend beyond the tub skirting my though is to run the tile all the way to the floor in this area? Also, whether you run tile all the way around the end of the wall or just keep the tile on each side is another design decision.

It will increase the difficulty of the install of you tie both sides of the wall into one another. Your grout joints will so have to line up and the chair rail will have to be mitered around the end. Pro tip: make sure that your toilet will fit before you tile the floor and the wall behind. Some toilets are right up to the sheetrock walk with no tile behind. Hi, and thank you in advance for your help. This will be for shower walls. Would you put blocking behind the horizontal seams for a foamboard product?

I personally have not added blocking at the seams and found it to be sufficient once the sealant was dry. If using a porcelain shower pan how can my contractor tie that to Durock foam or Kerdi Board?

Presently he plans to use Greenboard but I will ask him to use either of the above materials. I plan on tiling halfway up the other 3 walls in the bathroom.

I am new to this amazing forum. I really enjoy all of the hints, tips, and opinions. I am hoping someone can advise me on my upcoming project. I am tiling a large shower with a 10 foot ceiling. Cement board with Kerdi membrane will be used for the shower walls all the way up above the shower head.

We are using a Kerdi shower pan with a dry pack mortar extension, of course covered and finished with Kerdi membrane as well. It will be water tested before tiling. OR, Could the advise have been to use a thinset to affix the cement board to the Kerdi shower pan and then membrane over the whole thing for waterproofing? The Kerdi pan comes with a recessed hole as part of the slope. Or will it not matter since the board would still be sloped?

If I am using Hardi cement board, two questions should I put a plastic vapor barrier behind it no second, should I still use a liquid waterproofed over the backer board. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have a post on the different methods for waterproofing a shower. But the short answer is that I think a liquid waterproofing on the surface is better for most cases. I then found out that Diamondback requires modified tile mortar whereas the kerdi board and kerdi band requires unmodified. The cheap way forward for me now is to seal the entire wall area with Aquadefense and fiberglass tape.

A more expensive alternative is to just replace all of the Diamondback with Kerdiboard and stick with the Schlutter system. Great info on your site. We are waterproofing and tiling 3 walls of a new shower install and considering timing the ceiling over the shower enclosure also. My question. What product should we use to attach to the ceiling trusses that will be firm enough to hold the tile and not sag and at the same time be easy to work with and waterproof. We are planning on using either cement board with a paint on waterproofing or wedi board for the walls.

Will eithe if these work for the ceiling?? Thanks for you help, Mark. Yes, either will work for the ceiling. Wedi board is a lot easier to install on the ceiling and waterproof but either board will work. You do need 16 inch center spacing still.

I am about to start my first tiling project, the bathroom. My question is about the non-shower areas. The top half of the walls will be painted. Do I just use a tile-worthy backerboard on the bottom half and then switch to drywall for the top half for the paint? I applied an additional layer of Aqua-defense over the tape while the first layer was still wet to completely infiltrate the mesh.

I also ran the mesh in this way so that it overhung the Densshield by 1cm where it meets the flange. Any help would be greatly appreciated. There is very little information for areas surrounding steam showers.

First, a tile steam shower has very specific instructions for waterproofing it appropriately. The waterproofing system needs to guard against both water in liquid form and water in vapor form. Denshield, being composed of gypsum, is not an appropriate product for a steam shower. Both Hardibacker and Durock are products that are not suitable for steam showers by themselves with no waterproofing membrane.

Additionally, a Wedi shower system would work with an additional topical coating that they sell. These are the names of some shower systems that are ok for steam showers and are by no means the only products that will work.

In fact, all of the steam shower specifications that I am aware of call for not just waterproofing all walls, floor, and ceiling but installing tile on all of the these areas also. And the ceiling should be sloped. So I hope that you understand what you are getting yourself into.

A steam shower is a pretty technical installation and involves more than simply adding a steam unit. The sisters are only as long as the studs which means the studs are spaced out but the top and sole plates are about half an inch in.

Is this ok or do I have to space out the plates too? Permabase is good cement board. At least if most birds are like my chickens, whose favorite food is Styrofoam and rigid foam insulation. Why would he do that? Should I be concerned? Is there a cost difference? Not sure about the diabolical aspects but they do blow in the wind easily and never biodegrade. It could be that your contractor prefers the Hydroban brand. But just for the board but all the components. You seem to favor Wedi over Kerdi… thanks!

Hi All! We are planning to use Wedi board when redoing our tub and shower surround. My questions is do we have to tile the Wedi board on the ceiling? Kerdi board is just fine. The steps are a little bit different than Wedi and some other systems but they have good instructions and videos on how to install.

Usually, you stop the wall tile at the ceiling. There is Sheetrock from the ceiling that comes down about 7 inches, then the tile started from there all the way down to the tub. My question is, can I put up my hardibacker or cement board all the way up to the sheetrock or should I remove that 7 in of sheetrock and have the cement board go all the way to the ceiling. As long as you have backer board and waterproofing up to the shower head then you should be fine.

Great discussions…experimented with Hydro Ban and Kerdi,.. Seams were well sealed in both boxes, to wit, no leaks. As the HB bonded so well to the felt on Kerdi, there was no way to get water between layers on second box; tore them apart to find out after next experiment of punching holes in boxes…inserting pipes…Kerdi Fix to seal box one around pipe, Box 2 got HB around the pipe to Kerdi Board.

One such brand is Schluter Kerdi. After the thinset has dried, tile is applied to the sheet membrane with thinset. Kerdi can also be installed directly over standard drywall in a shower because, when installed correctly, it creates a continuous waterproof barrier.

One type of tile backer board is made with a water-resistant facing on both sides of the board. Georgia-Pacific's DensShield is one such product. The facing serves as an integrated waterproofing membrane, so you don't need to install a separate layer of plastic behind the tile backer or a sheet membrane over the backer. As with the other applications, thinset mortar is then applied to the board's surface, followed by tile and grout.

Several traditional tile installation methods used materials that are no longer considered acceptable for shower applications. It takes just a little moisture for drywall's paper facing to disintegrate and turn moldy. Even a tiny amount of water introduced through a crack or hole in the tile will expand once it hits the moisture-hungry paper facing and gypsum core of the drywall.

Because paper is an organic product, it will quickly become moldy. Greenboard 's acceptability as a shower backer board is debatable. Greenboard is only slightly more water-resistant than plain drywall. Greenboard has drywall's same gypsum core and paper facing. However, the facing is impregnated with waxes that shed water better than conventional drywall's paper. These foam niches come in various sizes so there is really no need to build a custom sized niche unless you insist on unconventional sizing.

Sorry for the bad news. I have a contractor and he used Wonderlite backer board. He did not put any liquid membrane on it or anything. He just put the tile on top of that. Is that safe? He also built a niche, but behind the niche is just drywall, not the Wonderlite backer board…he cut through that to build the niche.

Is that appropriate? Your email address will not be published. To continue to Amazon. Note: Amazon will set marketing cookies. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases — see my affiliate disclosure here. What is Tile Backer Board? Join our newsletter for blog and product updates Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form. Shower Remodel. Redblock January 28, at pm. Hi Neil, Thank you for your comment!

Good luck with your project! Neill January 28, at am. Redblock January 17, at pm. Hi Alysha, Wow! Alysha January 16, at pm. Redblock January 16, at pm. Hi Bob, Thank you for your comment! Bob Marquid January 15, at am. Hello Steve, I really appreciate your insight, thank you. Redblock January 6, at pm. Hi DS, Thank you for your comment!

Good luck! D Smith January 5, at pm. I am mainly concerned about meeting fire rating which I believe is one hour. Any advice? Thanks, DS. Redblock January 5, at pm. Hi Michael, Thank you for your comment! Good Luck with your project! Michael January 5, at pm. Redblock December 16, at pm. Redblock November 10, at pm. Hi Ivy, Thank you for your comment, and your compliment! And if you think anything is going sideways during the project, you can always ask me! Good Luck!

Ivy Hernandez November 9, at am. Redblock September 2, at am. Good Luck. Emir Demirovic September 1, at pm. Redblock September 1, at pm. Hi Emir, Thank you for your comment! Thanks Emir.