Ugly White Mineral Deposits on Shower Floors in Boston Area?

For Boston area homeowners, is your shower floor growing some ugly whitish milky looking crusty stuff that you can’t clean away? How can you get rid of it?

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

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