Shower Trays - Marmox Showerstone vs AKW Tuff Form

[The Ginger One]

Hello all you lovely knowledgeable forum members! We are about to take on a bathroom refit, where one of the main reasons for doing so is to enable installation of a standalone shower (rather than just over the bath). It is a wooden floor, but the shower tray will fitted in a corner, and raised on a pedestal/timber frame to make use of an existing (bath) drain which exits an external wall about 8-10cm above the floor level.

I understand that both the above shower trays are GRP and do not require underboarding, and as far as I can see, both cost about the same (once the waste/drain is included), but the AKW Tuff Form appears (according to the installation instructions) to require tanking *under* the tiles, up to the drain (with the corresponding additional cost of a tanking kit), whilst the Marmox Showerstone installation instructions simply say "Finally push on plastic grey ring and drain grill. Tiling can now begin", with no mention of tanking on the tray or around the drain...

Does anyone have any experience with either of the shower trays (but most particularly the Showerstone, for which there doesn't seem to be much info out there), and what are your thoughts on the requirements for tanking up to and around the drain? Many thanks, all! 🙂

 

[White Room]

I don't really fit shower trays but did a Tuff 2 once and found it quite simple.

 

[The Ginger One]

Whitebeam - did you apply tanking over the whole base of the tray? And did you have to sand down the surface first? Thanks.

 

[Qwerty]

The Marmox tray is waterproof and if instructions are followed correctly it requires no tanking other than the perimeter.
The Tuff tray requires tanking with a membrane type system such as @Impey Showers waterguard.
You only need to clean either of these trays prior to tiling or application of membrane, no sanding required.

 

[White Room]

I sanded the Tuff 2 due to the smoothness of the tray for the tanking applied with addy.

 

[Qwerty]

I sanded the Tuff 2 due to the smoothness of the tray for the tanking applied with addy.

Was that a homelux type membrane Mark?

 

[White Room]

Was that a homelux type membrane Mark?

It was Geoff, schluter to be precise

 

[The Ginger One]

Thanks for the info. My main concern regards the fact that installation of the Marmox tray suggests drilling and screwing *through* the drain area, providing four potential points of failure for leaking, if this isn't subsequently tanked...? Would a dab of Silicon over the screw heads suffice?

 

[Chalker]

Hi
You tank over the screws/washers, as you do with joints and intersections.
I like ardex wp for this purpose.

 

[Impey Showers]

Be great to see your install pics. How did you get on?