Lowering three inches

The area under the shower mostly reframed, replumbed and ready for plywood

In this photo you can see the 3" drop into the shower as well as the drain flange.

Jake mortaring the cement board joints

I spent the best part of the last 3 days or so lowering the the floor of the shower stall by three inches. In one respect this might have been a pretty straightforward process, but in the course of thing required some re-plumbing and some tight-quarters support framing while maintaining the well being of the radiant tubing winding through the works.

Why am I lowering the shower floor, you might ask? Well, way back I investigated whether or not I'd need to lower the floor in order to have a pitched grade to the drain. To the extent that I looked into it I felt comfortable not doing so. Now, as I write about it it seems obvious: you can't have a pitched surface without going down (unless you build up to a threshold, which maybe I was thinking at some point.)

Once I had the structure rebuilt and the plywood base installed, then I had to install the cement board, which is the underlayment material for the tile. This stuff was comparatively easy and presented no problems.

This morning Jake, who is doing the tile work in the bathroom, arrived and I was able to keep just ahead of him. He laid the underlayment on the floor of the bathroom and then mortared the joints of the cement board that I'd installed. I also installed the drain base and mortared that as well. His next move is to apply a waterproofing membrane to the whole lower area of the shower pan area.