Curbless Shower Installation Wood Subfloor | Part 1

Installing a curbless shower over a wood substrate is a lot easier now than in years past. Topical waterproofing and foam pans make the installation a lot faster and there’s practically no notching of the floor joists involved. In fact there are many sizes of foam pans available that require zero notching if you use a 1/4” underlayment outside the shower. This particular job did require notching the joists down about 3/8” which isn’t enough to worry about added deflection.

The first thing you’ll want to do is cut out the subfloor where your barrier free shower is to be installed. Once that is out of the way the next step is to install 2x4 along each side of the floor joists. You will need to add up the heights of your shower pan and subfloor thickness then deduct the thickness of the underlayment outside the shower to know how far down to install the 2x4. It’s better to error slightly deep than too high on the pan.

Once your 2x4 has been installed, cut strips of plywood to go between each run of floor joists. The plywood does have to be fully supported, so you may have to add additional floor joists or blocking as necessary. Our job was very accessible, so we added two more floor joists on each side of the pan. The new joists do have to be installed so that each end is resting on a beam or support.

Our next video will show you how to install the underlayment outside the shower and get the shower pan ready to install. Be sure to watch for Part 2 coming up.

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