Tiling around a Wet room channel drain

[simongii]

Hi,
I was hoping someone could offer me some advice/guidance.
I have recently bought a wet room channel drain and I'm now concerned it's not fit for what I want.
Please find image of the drain




The insert is to be tiled so that you just get a square outline where the water runs down and into the drain.
My query is this: The other (astronomically priced) similar drains I have seen online are made for the tanking mambrane to fold over the edge of the drain allowing any moisture under the tiles to flow into the drain. They then have another aluminium insert that allows you to butt the tiles (above the membrane) up against. A la:




Does anyone know how you install the one I've bought, the instructions are rubbish - obviously been translated. One part tells me to "make love with precision".
I'm worried that if I butt up the tiles to the aluminium frame and just have the membrane fit square to it then any moisture under the tiles will just collect in the angle and have nowhere to go.
Thanks for taking the time to read my question.

 

[Dan]

Re: Wet room channel drain question

If you used tanking on that, and fed it into the edge of the drain, you'd find you would have trapped the water there as it couldn't climb up the side of the drain. When tanking is used you would make sure the lowest point was the drain (for obvious reasons) therefore with that specific drain the tiles would be higher than the aluminium edge at the highest point.

I'd guess with that sort of drain, to prevent any water not going in the drain, you would want to use an epoxy resin as a grout. So then the surface butting up to the drain will allow water to run off into the drain, but it wouldn't soak into the grout and therefore wouldn't get trapped behind the tiles in the first place.

It looks like it is meant to be used like that. Though the small holes feeding water from the 'troth' bit, don't seem big enough to soak away the water from a decent shower. How big actually is that? (How long is it more so?)

p.s. love the 'make love to precision' comment. I think that should be written in all instructions. haha

 

[simongii]

Hi Dan,
thanks for the reply. What you've said is exactly my concern.
i think I can recess the floor to build it up to the level of the top lip.
then my tanking membrane could fold into the drain itself.

This poses two problems for me.
1) nothing to butt up the tiles to - thinking I could use some aluminium angle beading somehow adhesively fixed to the membrane.

2) the tile insert will sit lower than the new higher surface. Here I can just add some spacers under the loose tiled insert to create the correct height.

The trough is 1000mm in length, I think the waste is 40mm.
Not sure which small holes you mean the water will run through the gap between the tiled insert and the edge of the trough. There are more pics on the sellers eBay page:
STAINLESS STEEL SHOWER WET ROOM LINEAR DRAIN 900mm tile Flag | eBay

 

[simongii]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the response - your point is exactly my concern. This drain looks different to other ones I've seen in that respect. The drain is 1000mm long; the water will drain through the continous gap between the outside and all of the way around the edge of the tile insert - they look very neat when finished but I don't think that drainage is a problem. Unless you mean the little waste outlet, which is 40mm.

Here is the eBay page:

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
I can raise the sub-floor to be flush with the very top of the drain: I was planning on using a WBP base then possibly overboarding with hardi/aquapanel. I could route some of the WBP to make it a good fit. I will be creating the gradient myself in the WBP (& maybe some cement) rather than using a former.

Even then I have a couple of concerns maybe you can help with:

1) If I bring the floor flush with the top lip of the drain and then overlap the membrane into the drain I will have no aluminium straight edge to butt the tiles too. Do you think using some aluminium angle beading somehow adhered to the membrane to recreate the edge would work?

2) Then the tile insert will sit lower than the rest of the tiled floor. I was going to just create some plastic spacers to sit in the drain to correct this.

Sounding like more of a bodge now I've written it down! I'd have to be that precise with the routing, angle beading and spacers I'll end up making love all over the bathroom floor!!

 

[Mike Mike]

The seller is in Germany. Right there, that's your problem!

 

[simongii]

Thanks Mike, that put me off to start with too, but I decided it was time to forgive and forget!

Seriously though, does water behave differently in Germany or are the epoxy grouts more commonplace there?

 

[Mike Mike]

Thanks Mike, that put me off to start with too, but I decided it was time to forgive and forget!

Seriously though, does water behave differently in Germany or are the epoxy grouts more commonplace there?

Simon, let this be one of life's lessons to you. If you buy cheap Chinese crap from Germans via eBay ever again then you deserve no sympathy.

If you'd bought a high quality Swedish made drain then you'd be able to browse through the following detailed assembly and installation instructions, and call their Technical Dept with any questions: Broken Link Removed

Maybe something in there can give you a clue about your drain, I don't know???

But if there are no instructions with it when it arrives, and you are in any doubt about it's appropriateness for the job intended, my advice would be DON'T USE IT!

Gully drains have a lot more potential leakage problems than regular round wetroom drains, and not many are approved by the insurance companies and wetroom control here (Purus is, obviously).

Good luck!
(And don't EVER forgive and forget. No, no, no, no, no!)