DO THIS BEFORE Installing FOAM SHOWER PAN --- Self Leveling Underlayment for Tile

Hello and welcome to Tile Coach. I'm Isaac Ostrom, I'm a licensed

tile

contractor in Northern California and today I'm here in our beautiful showroom in Rocklin, California and I'm working on building a couple of

shower

displays here for our

tile

s. which we show in the showroom, but what's also cool is that I can make tutorial videos for my youtube right here in our showroom, so I'm really excited to work on these projects and the first thing I'm going to do is install a

foam

tray for our tiled

shower

now most of you, my viewers are probably thinking why are you making a

foam

tray.

You've seen my videos before and I'm usually always floating mortar in my trays and generally don't speak too well. about foam molds now there is a reason why i am using foam here for example i want to help beginners and do-it-your

self

ers learn how to make a tile shower with a foam mold because i think you will probably have a greater success. Please rate if you use a foam pan, so if you've never floated a mortar pan before, it usually takes a couple of tries to get it right and I think you might actually get better results if you install a foam pan than if you use a bed. of mortar. wrong, so that's one of the reasons why I'm trying to help you and I'm going to make

this

foam mold, but before I do that I need to show you a very important step and that step is to make sure that the substrate is level. and flat before

installing

the foam pan

this

is a 32 inch level I'm a quarter of an inch too low here which is too much slope going in the wrong direction and now the reason we need to start

leveling

flat and why This is because the foam panels come with a pre-sloped, they are already sloped and if that floor is out of level, your slopes will not be correct and you will run into puddles and other situations and you might wonder why. that.

Don't you just use portions of thinset mortar to set that tray down and level it nicely? That's also a big no-no because if you use portions and you don't have complete coverage between the foam tray and the substrate, that foam tray will not have support in areas and as people step on it it will give and when they tiles will give way, that's not good, it will end up cracking, it will fail and most likely you will end up having catastrophic water damage, so we don't want that. What I recommend is to level and flatten the substrate before you start and most of the time we see a substrate in the shower area it is not flat and it is not level now whether it is a cement slab that is going up and lower dips and humps or whether it is a plywood subfloor or joists or copings, so since I want you to be successful, I will explain to you how to use the

self

-leveler to flatten the substrate, so the first thing you should do When

installing

your self-leveler , you need to use a primer.

Now you can usually get the primer at the same place you get the self-

leveling

underlayment

. I happen to use custom for this video because it's what's available at Home Depot. I'm not sponsored by them, I'm not promoting their products, they're just easy to get, that's why I'm using it. This is most likely what you will find if you walk into your Home Depot so you can thin out the primer. Surfaces that aren't as porous if you have a really poor substrate. I think you need to use it at full strength, but read the instructions. Each brand is different.

I recommend it and it will tell you if you need to dilute it or not. Basically, just wipe off the primer and let it dry. Drying time depends on temperature and humidity of course, but in my experience it usually takes between 30 minutes to an hour and now you'll have a nice coat of dried primer, the second thing to do next. priming the surface you need to create dams where you don't want the self-leveler to run because the self-leveler comes out as a liquid so if you pour it and if you have cracks, gaps in the subfloor or of course around the drain or come out beyond the sidewalk, it will just run like water, so you basically need to create little dams around where you don't want the self-leveler to run.

I have found that the best product to use for this is the expandable spray foam that you get. in a can and again, you can get this spray foam at any home improvement store and what you do is you just go in and spray the spray foam. I make a perimeter because I don't want the self-leveler to go under the bottom plate. two by four and I don't want it to run into the weep hole of course so I create a little ring around the weep hole and then I also create a little dam where the outside edge of the sidewalk won't be the inside. edge of the curb, but I want it to be where the outside edge of the curb will be now.

You could probably also install the curb first and then just pour the self-leveler up to it, but I also want to emphasize that you need to have the curb level properly, so if you are installing a foam curb, you don't want to place it on an unlevel surface, so that we could also go ahead and pour the self-leveler all the way to the outside edge so that when you put the curb in there it will be nice and flat and level so once you've created those dams with the foam and in my experience I've found that the foam It takes another 20 to 30 minutes to firm up. enough to withstand the pressure of the self-leveler against it, so it doesn't need to be fully cured, it doesn't need to be completely hard, but as long as you can touch it without the foam getting sticky on your finger, I've found that's enough set up so the auto leveler will touch it and not run out so it's usually 20 to 30 minutes again the temperature and humidity will probably affect that so you've got your primer you've got your prey now you can go ahead and mingle.

Prepare your own leveler. Different self-levelers will have different water mixing ratios, so be sure to read the instructions on the bag for how much water to put in a measuring cup or measuring bucket. It will be of great help for this. Measuring cubes are great and you can find them commonly. them in the paint section and so you know exactly how much water to put in and they usually give you a little bit of leeway on how much you have a little grace period there on the amount of water so for this case I just try it. stay right in the middle of the range that they gave you for the water ratio, so once you mix it, you want to mix it so that when you mix it it's ready to pour, you want everything ready, you want your tools. instead you want everything ready so that when you mix it and stop mixing it all you need to do is carry it in and empty it out so preparation is key and what I have found is that for a typical shower tray it measures four or five feet. with uh, you know, two and a half or three feet wide, you generally have about 12 to 15 square feet for a shower pan, so what I've found is that one bag is almost the perfect amount to pour into a shower pan. shower you are going to give you about a half inch of self leveling across the entire pan area, I think the direction says in 50 square feet you will get an eighth of an inch, divide that in half at 25 square feet which would give you a quarter inch, divide it in half again. at 12 and a half square feet that would give you half an inch, so if you followed my calculations, check it out, leave the comments section below.

I get my calculations wrong all the time, but yes, one bag will give you about a half inch of thickness. which will give you a nice little bed, um, will allow the self-leveler to actually work. The thinner the self-leveler, the harder it will be to let it find its own level, so if you give it a good quarter of a half. inch bed of self-leveler, it will really seek its level, so once you pour it, you have to do some work. You can't just pour it and leave, you need to pour it and you want to help it, see? how there is surface tension and even though it's flowing and it's liquid, self-levelers have surface tension and that's because if you break the surface tension of the self-leveler, you just help it get to the corners, you help it to the edges and you just help it . to move it a little bit, you almost just want to move it to break the surface tension, it will find its own level, so you have to do it, you can do it with a trowel if you are working on large areas that tile installers will use. what we call the spike roller which has little spikes and just breaks the surface tension and allows it to flow, but for something that small a simple paddle is going to be really easy to use and effective so once you're done with that basically We're done, but I'd like to take the opportunity before the autoleveler is fully set up.

Usually if you wait about an hour, the auto leveler if it is a quick adjustment like custom level, it will be fast in about an hour. able to touch it without it moving, it will be quite difficult to touch it without it sticking to your fingers, it won't be fully set up, which is good. I like to take the opportunity at that time to remove my expanding foam where I don't want it and also take a trowel and you can clean up the edges where it meets the foam because again you have surface tension and you may have some ridges around the edges where it meets the foam or where it stops, throw them in while it's still soft and then it's probably a good time at that point, probably just to leave it, call it a day and come back the next day because I think they want you to wait four hours from the moment from when you pour it to the moment you pour it. cover it with tile or in this case foam so once you do that you are ready to go you will have a hard, firm and level substrate that is very durable and then when you go to install your foam tray it will gonna.

It's going to be easy to get full coverage because you're just going to apply a nice, even trowel of mortar, drop your plant and your tray and it'll be level and it'll be a lot easier than if you try to judge. with a thin layer on a non-level substrate, so I hope this video helped you if it did, leave your comment in the section below if you want to support us. I have these really cool t-shirts that I just made, if you like them, this is just a saying of mine that I learned from an old general contractor 15 or 20 years ago when I used to work with them a lot and always remembered especially when there was a mistake on a job or He would go overboard on a job, maybe he would underbid for a job, he would always say well, some days you make money, other days you make friends, so that always stayed with me.

I think it's really cool to not take yourself so seriously in the construction trades and sometimes, yeah, maybe sometimes we are. We only volunteer one day, but we have to keep a good attitude and remember we will make it the next day, so if you like the t-shirts, you can go to Tilecoach.com and I only have a limited number of these t-shirts. -Shirts I just made some up, so if you buy one of my original Tile Coach shirts, I'll go ahead and throw one of these in there for you, just write in the comments section when you purchase the shirt. a little place where you can put the message, just say I would like one of the t-shirts from some days you make money, so it's a privilege and an honor, and a joy to be able to help you get better at what you do.

Last but not least, I love you. I love being your tile coach and I'll see you in the next video.