Shower Tile Installation

A good shower holds its lines from every angle: tile courses meet the niche and bench cleanly, the drain sits where the slope wants it, and the glass lands on a grout joint instead of cutting across a tile. That’s the visible half. The half that matters more is behind it.

Waterproofing is the shower

Tile, grout and silicone are not waterproof. They shed most of the water and let the rest through, which is fine as long as there’s a membrane behind them to catch it and carry it to the drain. In most Lower Mainland homes built before the mid 2000s, there isn’t one. The shower was built on a mortar bed or on greenboard, it worked for fifteen years, and then the subfloor went soft.

We build every shower as a Schluter KERDI system. Membrane on the walls, a pre-sloped pan or a mortar bed pitched to a bonded flange drain, sealed inside corners, sealed pipe penetrations, and a test with the drain plugged before any tile is set. If you want to see what that looks like with the wall open, read our note on what’s behind a tiled shower.

Walk-in, curbless, and tub-to-shower

Most of our shower work falls into three shapes. A walk-in shower with a curb and a glass panel or door. A curbless shower where the bathroom floor runs straight into the shower with no step, draining to a linear drain along one wall. And a tub-to-shower conversion, where an old tub and surround come out and a proper shower goes in the same footprint.

Curbless is the one people ask about most and the one that punishes shortcuts. The floor has to be recessed or built up so the slope starts outside the shower, the drain has to be positioned so the large-format grid doesn’t break, and the waterproofing has to run well past where the water actually lands. Done right, it’s the best-looking shower there is. Done wrong, it’s a wet bathroom floor. Our Calacatta wet room in North Vancouver shows the version done right.

Niches, benches, drains, and glass

The details are where a shower reads as custom or as ordinary. Niches are set out so their edges land on grout lines, with the shelf sloped to drain and the back tile centred. Benches are waterproofed as part of the pan, pitched slightly, and capped in a single piece of stone or mitred tile where the design calls for it. Linear drains are set flush with the tile and aligned with the wall or the door. The glass installer measures after the tile is in, and we plan the layout so the panel sits on a joint and the curb top is level and ready.

Mitred outside corners, bookmatched slab walls and full-height porcelain panels fall under our custom tile installation work, and a lot of it happens in showers.

Materials in a wet area

Large-format porcelain is the default for a reason: it’s dense, flat, and easy to keep clean. Natural stone in a shower is beautiful and entirely possible, but it needs a sealing schedule, setting materials matched to the stone, and a client who understands the maintenance. We install marble, limestone and slate showers and we’ll be straight about what each one asks of you. Mosaic on the shower floor gives grip and takes slope well; large tile on a shower floor only works with a linear drain and a single-plane slope. See natural stone and large-format tile for the specifics.

Older homes and condos

Showers in older Vancouver, Burnaby and North Shore homes are usually hiding damage. We open the wall, check the framing and the subfloor, replace what’s gone, and rebuild. In condo towers the stakes are higher because the unit below is someone else’s ceiling. We build strata showers with a full membrane, tested before tile, and we manage the elevator bookings, noise hours and common-area protection that come with the building.

City pages cover the local specifics: shower tile installation in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam, and the rest of the region.

What to send us

Photos of the current shower, the rough size, the tile you’re leaning toward, and whether you want a curb or not. From that we can tell you what the assembly needs and roughly what it takes. The exact number comes after we’ve seen the room. Request a quote when you’re ready.