How To Install Durock Cement Board In A Shower

Installing cement backerboard is one of the more popular choices for a shower wall substrate. Cement backerboards include Hardiebacker, Durock, Fiberboard, wonderboard, and similar products. These materials bridge the gap between expense and effectiveness. When installed properly they will give you many, many years of durable shower construction.

The advantage of cement backerboards is that, while non waterproof, they are dimensionally stable when wet. That just means that when they get wet they do not swell upward. Whatsoever swelling backside tile is a bad thing. It will lead to swell grout, tile, and all sorts of bad things.

Waterproofing your studs

To install the backerboard you must accept a vapor barrier betwixt it and the wooden wall studs. While the backerboard volition not neat when moisture, your wall studs will. You must forestall any moisture from reaching them. The preferred cloth for a vapor barrier would be iv mil or thicker plastic sheeting which tin can be purchased at places similar Home Depot or any hardware store. You can also use tar paper or roofing paper, the thick black paper used under shingles. Although I personally practise not use that, it is an acceptable bulwark.

Starting with your bare wall studs on your shower walls simply have your plastic sheeting and staple it to the wall studs completely covering the unabridged surface which will be inside your shower. You can also utilise silicone instead of staples to adhere it to the studs. Make sure you overlap all the edges. Just hang it all upwards there like y'all're hanging wallpaper. You want it roofing the framing enough that if you lot were to spray the walls with a hose the wall studs and framing would non get wet.

At the bottom of the bulwark you will want it to overlap on the shower side of the tub or shower base. That is you desire information technology then that any water that runs down the plastic sheeting will roll off into the tub rather than behind the tub. Overlap the lip of the tub or base and silicone the back of the barrier to keep it in identify.

Installing the backerboard

Now for the backerboard. Lay out your backerboards for the best fit on the walls. They can get up vertically or horizontally, it makes no difference. With a regular tub surround with a five foot back wall it is ordinarily easier to use two horizontal sheets along the back wall and one vertical on each of the sides. (This assumes 3 X five foot backerboard sheets.)

All backerboards are cutting by scoring and snapping. You do non need a saw for them. While there are special scoring tools specifically for this yous can hands do it with a regular utility knife. While all these backerboards are substantially identical in their effectiveness as a substrate, some are more easily cut. Durock, in my opinion, is the most difficult. I personally prefer hardiebacker or fiberboard. Make certain you check the website for whichever you lot cull for specific instructions.

To fasten the backerboard to the framing you have a couple of choices. A lot of professionals only use galvanized roofing nails. While this is perfectly adequate, I prefer screws over nails when possible. Hardi makes specific screws for their backerboard which tin also be used for all backerboards. These are manufactured with ribs beneath the caput of the screw which assist it cut into the backerboard and countersink then the head is flush. If your local large box or hardware store carries them, they will be in the tile department. You can likewise apply only about whatsoever blazon of corrosion resistant screw. Anything that can be used for an outside deck can be used for your backerboard.

Fasten your backerboard to your shower framing with a screw or boom almost every viii – 12 inches. I would besides propose using a straight-edge along your wall while doing this and so that you tin can shim out any areas where the wall studs may non exist direct. The flatter your backerboard is installed, the easier your tile installation will be. Take your fourth dimension, the beer isn't going anywhere.

Allow for motion!

Y'all practise non desire to butt the backerboards against one another. You need to exit a small gap at every change of plane. That includes corners, walls to ceilings, and walls to tubs or floors. There needs to be room for expansion and contraction.

Wood moves – always. It's merely a fact of life. The hugger-mugger to dealing with the motility is to ensure the movement will not interfere with the tile. Leaving this modest gap will allow for movement of the sheets enough and so that they do not force against one some other and push button out. While the backerboard itself is very stable, you are even so attaching it to forest.

If you accept a tub or shower base y'all will also want to stop the backerboard virtually ane/eight inch above the lip. You do non want to run the board over the border of the lip because it will cause the backerboard to bow out and your wall volition not be flat. It will also allow the tub or shower base of operations to movement a chip – information technology's attached to the wooden studs as well. Tubs also motion when they are filled with water. You need to allow for that movement.

I usually leave near a 1/sixteen to i/8 inch gap between the sheets of backerboard. This allows for thinset to lock into the unabridged thickness of your backerboard when you lot tape and mud your seams. We'll cover that part in a infinitesimal.

Don't allow for movement! (Confused yet?)

If your shower framing is such that you lot cannot place the edges of all the backerboards directly over a stud y'all will demand to add together more than studs. Y'all may exercise this with regular two Ten 4's screwed to the nowadays framing vertically or horizontally every bit needed. You must make sure that every border of the backerboard is supported and then if the wall is pushed or leaned on in that spot information technology does not move. You want solid walls.

Terminal step

The last matter you must exercise is mud and tape your seams. Like to regular drywall all of your in-airplane joints must exist taped. To do this you just employ regular thinset and alkali-resistant fiberglass mesh tape. You tin find the record in the tile section – information technology's similar to regular fiberglass drywall record, simply it specifically manufactured to be alkali resistant. Make sure it is alkali-resistant considering your thinset contains alkali which volition gradually erode regular tape thus defeating the purpose.

There are two ways to address the corners. The industry standard, and the way y'all should do information technology, is to tape and mud the corner joint besides. Most backerboard manufacturers recommend this, as do the handbook standards. I only exercise that virtually half the time – I'g a rebel like that.

*The other one-half of the fourth dimension I only tape and mud the in-plane joints – the gaps in the same wall, non the corners. With the corners I fill the gap with silicone. I do this to let the dissimilar planes of the walls to move in unlike directions, which they volition do whether you similar information technology or not. Assuasive this motility in the substrate compensates for excess stress in certain applications. This is something that I do, it is not manufacture standard and y'all volition likely not observe anyone else recommending doing this. Then when y'all get the alien information well-nigh this – that's why.

Fill all the gaps in your seams with thinset (you left gaps there, right?) then embed the tape into it. Then go over the record with more thinset to smooth everything out. This will lock everything together and requite you a continuous, solid substrate for your tile. That's what you're looking for.

When properly installed cement backerboards will create a stone solid, extremely durable substrate for your tile installation. Taking time and care to solidify what is behind or beneath your tile is the but way to guarantee a lasting installation. Your tile is only as durable as what it is installed upon.

As always if you lot have any questions at all please feel free to exit a comment.

Hardiebacker Website

Durock Website

Need More Data?

I now have manuals describing the complete process for you from bare wall studs all the style up to a completely waterproof shower substrate for your tile. If you are tiling your walls and floor you can find that one hither: Waterproof shower flooring and wall manual.

If you have a tub or pre-formed shower base and are simply tiling the walls you lot can observe that one here: Waterproof shower walls manual.