Trim or not to trim (recess in shower)

[Carl Morrison]

Hi guys,

No I know its probably not the best approach for a shower but have decided to put a recess in the wet area. Using hardi throughout and will fully tank recess and down to shower base, however, when I come to tile Im a little worried that installing a trim will be the 'weak point'... so if you were doing a recess in a shower would you try to mitre the tiles or use trim leaving a gap to grout? If I put tiles right up to the edge then I assume without much room for grout its going to be the 'weak point'.

Need to finish surrounds in hardi but here is pic at the mo....

Advise please :smilewinkgrin:

 

[kaharrison9]

Use a trim

If fully tanked correctly your tiles are purely cosmetic so should make no differance wether water goes behind or not.

Make sure all joints and internal corners are taped and tanked.

Do heavily silicone the tray to the hardiebacker when fitting and bed it on rapid adhesive to stop any movement.

The bottom tile in the recess put on a very slight angle so any water runs out rather than sits there.

Also silicone all the internal corners of the recess.

Kev

 

[Mr T]

would love to see a few more step by step picks if ya could mate lol

 

[Diggy]

Just remember to put a small fall on the cill of the recess.

I use trim on mine and then a guy comes along and does all the silicone afterwards.

Like so.

Diggy

 

[Ian]

Here's a pic of a mitred niche

 

[Diggy]

Bri , how close do you go to the edge on your mitres and secondly do you mitre cut edges?

Diggy

 

[Ian]

Bri , how close do you go to the edge on your mitres and secondly do you mitre cut edges?

Diggy

About 1mm in from the edge, these were ceramics so quite easy to get that close without chipping, I leave a 1mm (ish) joint to grout in the mitre. With ceramics I find it easiest just to use a grinder to cut the mitres, with porcelain I've used the grinder profiling attachment from ATS here is a pic of a niche done with that

 

[Carl Morrison]

Thanks all for the advise... great stuff!

I havent gone with a light because Im worried it will again be a 'weak point'.... but you will see from the photo that I am going to put one to the left on the outside of the shower screen off a pir detector.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a 240v small accent sunken downlight? Thanks again, and good work on those mitres Bri!

 

[gamma38]

Personally I don't like trim. I always mitre, or if it is stone I normally radius (bullnose) the edges. As above though if it is all tanked properly you have no worries what you do as it's all cosmetic.

 

[gamma38]

The only small lights my sparks has used are the 20mm decking ones, not sure of the voltage. They looked good though, small, quite powerfull, led's and he didn't charge me too much for them either. I used them on my job because the recess was only 80mm deep.