Ugly White Deposits on Shower Floor Boston

WHAT CAUSES MINERAL DEPOSITS ON SHOWER FLOORS IN BOSTON AREA

This ugly stuff is caused, basically, by a constantly soaked cement bed under the tile on the floor, thanks to the copper pan construction used overwhelmingly in the Boston area. By the way, this flat bottomed method of building shower pans with no weepholes to drain out this water is not the only or the preferred method of construction in other parts of this country or the world. Many places have a double mud job system that requires a pre-sloped mud job that allows the pan to be at an angle, leading to a series of small holes at the bottom that allow the water to drain out quickly after a shower so this ugly stuff doesn’t form on your shower floor. There are also systems such as the Schluter system that place the shower pan liner on top of the mud job so the mud never gets wet. These are also legal in Massachusetts, so technically you shouldn’t have to deal with the issue at all.

But plumbers aren’t usually all that interested in what’s new on the market place. Many that I’ve met are not interested in anything developed after the year 1970. They literally believe that since copper is a metal, that means it’s superior to every other material. (Even though it’s banned in some jurisdictions outside of Massachusetts!) Maybe I’m being too hard on plumbers….but their focus is usually on avoiding leaks, not appearance for years to come.

So most often when we install a shower, the copper pan has already been put in place…too late to change course at that point. Or a renovation shows a perfectly re-usable copper pan and the owner doesn’t want to pay for removing the old pan and wants the project to keep moving forward. Is there any way to build a tile shower using copper pan technology that will avoid this problem down the road?

Yes, there is.

We use the same materials for waterproofing that are commonly available to tile installers and take a few extra steps. This is no patented method; it can’t be because it’s too darn simple and makes too much sense! Instead, this is just a reaction to seeing homeowners look angry and frustrated six months or six years after the construction when they see ugliness that they never asked for.

Here are the steps:

1. When the mud job is built, add liquid latex instead of just water. This makes the mud a bit harder to work with, but much stronger when done. It also reduces the porosity of the cement somewhat, although not enough to solve the whole problem.
2. Install the cement board all way down into and inside the mud job. One common way to try to avoid wicking issues is to hang the board a bit suspended away from the mud job by half an inch or so, but in this case we want them firmly touching so they form the corner of our new ‘second shower pan liner’
3. Just in case there’s any moisture vapor that could damage the wood studs, cut strips of roofing paper and nail them onto the wood before screwing the cement board. This won’t stop all water vapor from coming out the back, just from getting the wood itself wet. We’re not wrapping the whole wall as if it were a vapor barrier, just 2” strips to cover the studs. I hate moldy wood.
4. Once the mud job is done and the cement board hung, cover both the floor and the walls with waterproofing compound. There are many brands that work and integrate with thinset cement – all of them work well. Some well known brands include Kerdi and Redgard and Hydroban. Understand that these products are typically used as shower pan liner materials all by themselves, with no copper pan ‘backup system’ below them. But our goal in this case is not to use them as a shower pan; we’re mainly trying to prevent water from saturating the mud job and the resulting efflorescence from ruining the look of the shower floor in the future. It’s cosmetic in that way, but a side benefit of the cosmetic advantage is we’re also reducing the possibilities of any leaking big time. Not a bad fringe benefit!
5. Now, you’ve basically created a second ‘shower pan liner’ on top of the copper pan liner. This one is larger since it goes all the way up the walls. Kinda like having a belt AND suspenders just to be sure.
Make sure to use premium thinset when installing the tile, the good stuff. It’s denser and has more latex polymers than the $6 per bag stuff.
6. It’s important we don’t use regular porous cement grout for the shower floor. Even with extra latex added, it’s just too porous and our goal here is to avoid water going anywhere but down the drain. Instead use epoxy grout. These are more difficult to use and are definitely not first time do it yourself category of grouts, but they have the advantage of being very watertight. We’ve used many different brands and they all work well. Just choose one that has a color you want and expect to pay extra for the product itself (it is not cheap) and the extra labor for the floor grouting (but we’re not talking a fortune on the labor side)
7. Since the walls are not epoxy grout, (they usually need unsanded grout and most all epoxy grouts are sanded) they will need a grout additive to make them more latexy too. Check the manufacturer; not all allow this. TEC has a product called Grout Boost that we’ve used a few times, but Custom Building Products, the brand sold at Home Depot says don’t use it on their grout because their grout already has plenty of latex built in.
8. After the wall grout has dried a few days, a couple coats of clear penetrating sealer is the final step. It’s not needed on the floor, since epoxy grout never needs sealer. This step will minimize water even getting through wall grout lines

At this point, your shower has been battle prepared to handle floods of incoming water without saturating the mud below the floor. Epoxy grout stops 99.3% of the water, and the waterproofing compound can handle the last 0.7% that got through. Years later when this mud job is removed, it will be dry as a bone and the homeowner will never have to deal with the yuck.

Is this approach more expensive? A little, but not as much as you’d think. It’s better practice and I hope it becomes the standard so property owners will stop being ripped off by having unavoidable ugliness sprout right in their master bath. I think losing thousands of dollars of property value is more expensive…

I know this is beyond the ability of a do-it-yourselfer. This is more a recommendation for your tile installation contractor. If you’re thinking of building a shower in Massachusetts or any other area where the plumber has ‘told you’ that you have to have a copper pan or any other flat bottomed pan approach, use the above guidelines for the tile setter to build it right so you avoid these problems down the road. And don’t expect the plumber or even most tilesetters to know this stuff in advance. Its not only rare, it’s almost unheard of to follow these steps.
If you want us to talk them through it, we’ll be glad to. Our phone number is 617-500-9271 (Eastern Standard Time) Tradespeople are often uncomfortable using new materials and don’t like the first time they try one. But all the tools and materials recommended here have a long track record of success; there are no innovations for the sake of innovations going on here.

Next post will go over how to deal with a shower floor that already has the problem.

If you do live in the Boston area and you’d like us to build the shower or just oversee the technique, you can either call or fill out our contact form below.

Towns where Boston Grout does shower building, shower repair, shower floor replacement and regrouting : Boston, Brookline, Milton, Wellesley, Newton, Weston, Wayland, Dover, Concord, Acton, Lincoln, Lexington, Bedford, Westford, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Winchester, Belmont, Woburn, Waltham, Ashland, Framingham, Sherborn, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Millis, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Sharon, Stoneham, Foxborough, Foxboro, Canton, Stoughton, Needham, Ashland, Chestnut Hill, Natick, Sudbury, Maynard, Stow, Watertown, Dedham, West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Randolph, Weymouth, Cohasset, Scituate, Braintree, Holbrook, Quincy, Rockland, Hanover, Hingham, Medway, Franklin, Wrentham, Medford, Malden, Everett, Revere, Charlestown, Winthrop, Chelsea, Melrose, Saugus, Peabody, Marblehead, Ipswich, Swampscott, Lynn, Wakefield, Tewksbury, Woburn, Burlington, Reading, Lynnfield, Wilmington, Middleton, Wenham, Hamilton, Essex, Manchester, Gloucester, Topsfield, Boxford, Boxborough, Boxboro, Rowley, Georgetown, Andover, North Andover, Haverhill, Carlisle, Billerica, Ayer, Harvard, Lawrence, Methuen, Salem, Beverly, Salisbury, Amesbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Harvard, Lancaster, Bolton, Franklin, Mendon, Newtonville, Hopedale and Milford.
But, what zipcodes go with those towns, you wonder…
OK, OK, here they are!
02138, 02139, 02140, 02141, 02142, 02141, 02141, 02140, 02140, 02163, 02108, 02109, 02110, 02111, 02113, 02114, 02115, 02116, 02118, 02119, 02120, 02121, 02122, 02124, 02125, 02127, 02128, 02133, 02163, 02199, 02203, 02210, 02215, 02222, 02283, 02284, 02126, 02129, 02130, 02131, 02132, 02134, 02135, 02136, 02128, 02127, 02215, 02128, 02127, 02420, 02421, 02458, 02459, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02465, 02459, 02460, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02465, 02459, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02466, 02467, 02468, 02459, 02459, 02465, 02478, 02446, 02445, 02447, 02143, 02144, 02145, 01801, 01890, 02155, 02155, 02155, 02148, 01803, 01730, 01731, 01821, 01862, 01862, 01862, 01810, 01845, 01845, 01742, 01742, 01742, 01741, 01720, 01718, 01719, 01720, 01720, 01776, 01776, 01776, 01864, 01867, 01701, 01702, 01701, 01701, 01752, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02169, 02170, 02171, 02171, 02171, 02171, 02169, 02169, 02169, 02186, 02186, 02067

Ugly Efflorescence on Shower Floor Boston

This white stuff that’s forming on your tile shower floor is not going to go away by cleaning alone. The reason is that the way the shower is built is likely the culprit, not bad cleaning habits.

Some people might believe that hard water is the reason this forms. But the Massachusetts water systems, at least most of Boston and the suburbs of Boston, actually have pretty soft water. I think Carlisle may be an exception, from what I recall about a shower we did there a few years ago.

The problem is most likely efflorescence and it comes from the way the shower pan liner is built. Underneath the tile of the shower floor, there is a layer of thinset cement, a tile adhesive about a quarter inch thick. That adhesive cement is used to stick the tile to the ‘mud job’ floor. A mud job is a sloped base made out of a fairly dry mix of Portland cement and sand. We’ve all made sand castles at the beach and we’ve all seen liquid cement pour out of a cement mixer truck. A mud job is not wet like the pouring kind of cement; it’s drier like the sand castle consistency. That’s what allows the installer to form it into a shape, a slight slope to lead the water to the drain of the shower, the low point.

Mud jobs have to be fairly thick, at least an inch and a quarter at the low point and probably two inches elsewhere. Below that is a ‘shower pan liner’, which in Massachusetts is a waterproof material to stop the water from leaking through the grout, then through the thinset, then through the mud job then through the subfloor then through the ceiling below then onto your head when you’re eating breakfast downstairs!

The Massachusetts plumbing code just says the liner has to be waterproof, nothing more.

This is from the code 248 CMR 10.00 which you can access online if you find it fascinating enough. Link is here:

Mass Plumbing Code on Shower Pan Liners

Shower Floors or Receptors:
1. Floors or receptors under shower compartments shall be laid on or be supported by a smooth and structurally sound base.
2. Floors under shower compartments, other than those laid directly on the ground surface or where prefabricated shower base receptors have been provided, shall be lined and made watertight by the provision of suitable shower pans of durable Product-approved materials.
3. Shower pans shall turn up on all sides at least above the finished threshold level.
4. Shower pans shall be securely fastened to the waste outlet at the seepage entrance making a watertight joint between the pan and the outlet.
5. Floor surfaces shall be constructed of smooth, non-corrosive, nonabsorbent, and waterproof materials. [The code spells out elsewhere what those ‘waterproof materials’ are. Massachusetts allows copper, some vinyl products, Kerdi and a few other brands such as Tile Redi. This state is pretty fussy about the exact product you can use compared to other states; each material has to be named specifically to be used.]

So, in essence, what the code requires is just some means of trapping the water that seeps through the grout lines of your shower floor. There’s no requirement to use a system that drains that water away, even though those systems do exist. And there’s no requirement to use epoxy grout for the tile floor or walls, even though that’s the most water resistant grout possible. See our earlier post about: Epoxy grout in Boston area showers

What does this have to do with the ugly white stuff??

This ‘trapped water’ is the major reason why the white stuff forms and you can only get rid of it if you understand why it forms.

Next post is on how to minimize it and how to kill it.

For instant quotes on almost any standard service, just fill in our handy dandy contact form below. One note is that we have not added this as a standard priced service yet, so you can see all our other prices, but work on the shower floor won’t be listed on the email that you receive when you fill out this form. If you have this exact problem and want it solved, then fill out the form along with your phone so we can give you a call about it. Our phone is 617-500-9271

Towns where Boston Grout does shower repair, shower floor replacement and regrouting : Boston, Brookline, Milton, Wellesley, Newton, Weston, Wayland, Dover, Concord, Acton, Lincoln, Lexington, Bedford, Westford, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Winchester, Belmont, Woburn, Waltham, Ashland, Framingham, Sherborn, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Millis, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Sharon, Stoneham, Foxborough, Foxboro, Canton, Stoughton, Needham, Ashland, Chestnut Hill, Natick, Sudbury, Maynard, Stow, Watertown, Dedham, West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Randolph, Weymouth, Cohasset, Scituate, Braintree, Holbrook, Quincy, Rockland, Hanover, Hingham, Medway, Franklin, Wrentham, Medford, Malden, Everett, Revere, Charlestown, Winthrop, Chelsea, Melrose, Saugus, Peabody, Marblehead, Ipswich, Swampscott, Lynn, Wakefield, Tewksbury, Woburn, Burlington, Reading, Lynnfield, Wilmington, Middleton, Wenham, Hamilton, Essex, Manchester, Gloucester, Topsfield, Boxford, Boxborough, Boxboro, Rowley, Georgetown, Andover, North Andover, Haverhill, Carlisle, Billerica, Ayer, Harvard, Lawrence, Methuen, Salem, Beverly, Salisbury, Amesbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Harvard, Lancaster, Bolton, Franklin, Mendon, Newtonville, Hopedale and Milford.
But, you insist, ‘what are the zip codes that go along with those town names?? Don’t leave us in suspense!’
OK, OK, here they are!
02138, 02139, 02140, 02141, 02142, 02141, 02141, 02140, 02140, 02163, 02108, 02109, 02110, 02111, 02113, 02114, 02115, 02116, 02118, 02119, 02120, 02121, 02122, 02124, 02125, 02127, 02128, 02133, 02163, 02199, 02203, 02210, 02215, 02222, 02283, 02284, 02126, 02129, 02130, 02131, 02132, 02134, 02135, 02136, 02128, 02127, 02215, 02128, 02127, 02420, 02421, 02458, 02459, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02465, 02459, 02460, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02465, 02459, 02461, 02462, 02464, 02466, 02467, 02468, 02459, 02459, 02465, 02478, 02446, 02445, 02447, 02143, 02144, 02145, 01801, 01890, 02155, 02155, 02155, 02148, 01803, 01730, 01731, 01821, 01862, 01862, 01862, 01810, 01845, 01845, 01742, 01742, 01742, 01741, 01720, 01718, 01719, 01720, 01720, 01776, 01776, 01776, 01864, 01867, 01701, 01702, 01701, 01701, 01752, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02184, 02169, 02170, 02171, 02171, 02171, 02171, 02169, 02169, 02169, 02186, 02186, 02067

Ugly peeling mastic on back of tile

The ugly peeling mastic on the back of this tile came from a shower that was less than 2 years old. It was bulging and grout lines were cracking from the damp swollen sheetrock behind the tile.  Black mold was growing also, which was a concern to the upset homeowner.  This shower could have lasted a century if thinset cement was used instead. The total replacement that was necessary cost the homeowner totally unnecessary money, money she had already spent once and now had to spend again.

If mastic is so evil, why would anyone use the stuff anymore?

To recap earlier posts, mastic is a tile adhesive used to hold up tile on vertical surfaces like walls. But in a shower, it weakens over time as the moisture from the shower makes its way to the back of the tile. This leads to a LOT of tile failures and the need for tile repair.

If tile repair were cheap and easy, it wouldn’t be much of an issue…but it’s not so easy and cheap.

So, why is mastic still sold?

It’s very easy to use. It is sticky, so it grabs wall tile and won’t allow it to slide down the wall. The better material, thinset cement, doesn’t have instant grab. Instead, you have to actually build a small support of the wall tile so they don’t slide down and fall off while the cement is wet. This is called a batten board, and it takes maybe 10 minutes to put one on the wall. So if the shower has 3 walls, it might take a total of 30 extra minutes to tile the shower. Maybe a bit more, counting the time to mix the thinset, but not much more. So for half an hour’s savings, tilesetters make your showers ‘guaranteed to fail’. Ridiculous!

The only legitimate use for mastic is on a wall surface that you know will never get wet!

Outside a shower, you might use it for bathroom walls or kitchen walls. For backsplashes, I’d still be nervous if the sink splashed near the wall tile. I’ve even seen some backsplashes ruined by mastic installation.
Fireplaces? Nope! Mastic also weakens during exposure to heat as well, not just water.

So, to summarize, the stuff is only useful if you know the tile will never get wet, or hot, which kind of rules out almost every tile installation I can think of.

Just say no to the stuff….say yes to real thinset cement!

Related posts

• Why You Don’t Want Mastic In Your Tile Shower Unless You Want Tile Repair Bills! (0)

How should we answer?

Something on the order of “NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Bear in mind, this is in very nice house easily worth millions in a very nice neighborhood and they had recently finished a $60,000 renovation. Maybe the contractor would use premium materials, just maybe?? Maybe he’d hire a tilesetter who knows what to use and what not to use? Just maybe?

It gets us mad when tilesetters who are supposed to know their trade use a material that creates this sort of problem. It’s the same material, time after time. It should be outlawed, in my opinion, or at least have huge warning labels all over the bucket.

What is this nasty, shower-destroying, money burning, evil stuff called?

Mastic. It also uses the alias ‘pre-mixed thinset’.

What’s so bad about it?

Simple. It’s not real cement – it has more in common with glue. And it’s water sensitive. Meaning that over time when water seeps through the grout lines, the mastic gets weaker and weaker and the bond between the tile and wall gets looser and looser. At some point, you can actually have tile fall off the wall or pull them off yourself using your hand. Make no mistake, water always get through grout lines.

This is true even if the tiler used real cement board walls. Glue just can’t handle the amount of moisture that showers create. If it’s a steam shower, it’s doubtful the shower might even last a few months of normal use.

How can you recognize this evil compound? Simple: it comes all premixed up for your convenience in a tub or bucket and you just scoop some out and smear it on the wall. If you are hiring a tile contractor to retile a shower and he hauls out a bucket of stuff to stick the tile on, and it’s all ready to use instantly, it’s mastic. What he should be using is real thinset cement, which is always a powder in a bag that he has to mix with water first before it’s usable.

Can a mastic shower be saved if tile are coming off the wall? It depends. If you have more of the original tile, we might be able to replace some of the broken or cracked ones, or maybe even scrape off the back and re-use some if that’s feasible. Tile repair is tricky and takes more skill than original installation, so we do charge extra. When we finish a repair, we almost always regrout the shower so the new grout on the repair won’t ‘stand out like a sore thumb.’ The repair part of the job might be under a hundred dollars if it’s a few tiles, or it can and has run over a thousand dollars for more extensive repairs. What a waste for the homeowner because the tile setter was too lazy to use the right thinset cement and used mastic instead!

We’ll do a post on why mastic is used and where it’s OK to use it, maybe later next week. Meantime, if you’re having tile installation or a tile shower built, just call the builder or tile guy and insist that he or she brings no mastic in your house. You’ll be better off and hopefully a mastic manufacturer will go out of business.

If you live in any of the towns listed below, and you suspect you’re a victim of mastic tile work, and you need either tile repair or regrouting, give us a call at 617-500-9271 or fill out this form below and we’ll get right back to you with an instant quote and any help we can offer. I should note that our repairs are done the way mechanics work: since most of the important issues are hidden, we work by the hour to fix them. Meaning we can’t always know the final bill before we start, but we can estimate it based on other similar repairs we’ve done.

Towns where Boston Grout does tile repair: Boston, Brookline, Milton, Wellesley, Newton, Weston, Wayland, Dover, Concord, Acton, Lincoln, Lexington, Bedford, Westford, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Winchester, Belmont, Woburn, Waltham, Ashland, Framingham, Sherborn, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Millis, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Sharon, Stoneham, Foxborough, Foxboro, Canton, Stoughton, Needham, Ashland, Chestnut Hill, Natick, Sudbury, Maynard, Stow, Watertown, Dedham, West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Randolph, Weymouth, Cohasset, Scituate, Braintree, Holbrook, Quincy, Rockland, Hanover, Hingham, Medway, Franklin, Wrentham, Medford, Malden, Everett, Revere, Charlestown, Winthrop, Chelsea, Melrose, Saugus, Peabody, Marblehead, Ipswich, Swampscott, Lynn, Wakefield, Tewksbury, Woburn, Burlington, Reading, Lynnfield, Wilmington, Middleton, Wenham, Hamilton, Essex, Manchester, Gloucester, Topsfield, Boxford, Boxborough, Boxboro, Rowley, Georgetown, Andover, North Andover, Haverhill, Carlisle, Billerica, Ayer, Harvard, Lawrence, Methuen, Salem, Beverly, Salisbury, Amesbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Harvard, Lancaster, Bolton, Franklin, Mendon, Newtonville, Hopedale and Milford.

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