Walk-In Shower Installation, New Britain & Across Connecticut

Because you are building a sloped, waterproofed floor system instead of setting a tub on a flat one. That means real waterproofing rather than a flange and a bead of caulk, a flood test before tile, and often glass that has to be custom-sized for the lower sill. It is more labor and more material. What you get back is a floor you can walk straight into, which is the whole point.

A properly built one does not. The failures we get called out to involve a shower where the slope was set after the waterproofing, or where the corners were simply coated rather than turned and lapped into the membrane, or where the curb was removed and the pan was never re-sloped. We do the membrane as a system and flood-test it before tiling, which is the difference between a shower that lasts and one that wets the wall framing.

Through-body porcelain rated for wet areas, in a slip-resistant finish. Grout is not waterproof and never will be, which is why the membrane underneath is doing the real work. On the floor we avoid anything with a very smooth glaze. Porcelain with a matte or structured surface is the right call in a wet area.

The tile and the waterproofing are exempt finish work under the 2022 Connecticut State Building Code. New or relocated plumbing (a new valve, a moved drain, a new shower supply) is permitted work, pulled by the licensed plumber doing it through the town's building department. We flag those items before work starts so the job does not stop halfway.

Usually yes, but it depends on how the floor is built and whether there is a drain nearby. A curbless shower needs the floor low enough to drain by fall alone, which in a typical Connecticut bathroom means raising the surrounding floor or lowering the shower pan. We check the floor structure and the drain location at the estimate and tell you straight if your bathroom can take it.

We build the pan, then go over it with a bonded waterproofing membrane such as a Schluter-KERDI style sheet or a liquid-applied one where the geometry calls for it. The membrane runs over the pan, up the walls, around the curb, and over every seam, corner and valve penetration, and we hold a twenty-four-hour flood test before any tile goes down. If a drop moves, we find it while it is still inexpensive to fix.

Only sometimes, and only when the old tile passes the checks: solidly bonded everywhere when you tap it, flat, and structurally sound, with enough give at the outlets, counters and doors to absorb the added thickness. When it fails any of those, tiling over it locks the problem in. On a wet area we almost always take it down to the substrate instead.