In this article, we will talk about how to make a shower tray with your own hands from affordable and inexpensive materials using a simple construction tool. The topic of the article is relevant, because, despite the abundance of ready-made pallets for sale, the price of such products is high.

Again, only building and finishing the shower enclosure with your own hands can ensure that it is optimally combined with the interior decoration in the room. So, we found out that independent construction guarantees a number of obvious advantages, it remains to decide how and from what to build.

The choice of building material

Before you make a shower tray with your own hands, you need to decide which building and finishing materials to use.

The products on sale are made of stamped steel, cast iron, acrylic, ceramic, natural stone, etc. Unfortunately, all of the listed materials are not suitable for self-manufacturing of the pallet. The only thing from which you can independently build a pallet bowl is from concrete, followed by ceramic tiling.

The advantage of using concrete is the ability to give the bowl any even the most complex shape. In addition, if ceramic tiles used for flooring are used when lining the bowl, the constructed pallet and the room will be stylistically perceived as a single whole.

So, we decided that we will use concrete and tiles, it remains to determine the characteristics of these materials.

Proportions of concrete

Traditionally, concrete is called a mixture of cement, sand and water with the addition of one or another aggregate. For example, in the manufacture of structures in contact with water, crushed stone is used as a filler, since it is characterized by low porosity and practically does not absorb moisture.

Tip: To give the concrete product maximum hydrophobicity, at the mixing stage, “liquid glass” can be added to the solution along with water.
But in this case, the setting rate of the solution will be significantly accelerated.

The ratio of ingredients in the composition of the solution is determined by the brand of concrete. For example, concrete grade 200 (most often used in individual housing construction) is made from 1 part of cement, 2.6 parts of seeded dry sand and 4.5 parts of crushed stone (fraction no more than 2-2.5 cm).

For the manufacture of concrete, Portland cement with a grade of at least M400 is used.

Type of finishing materials used

The requirements for tiles are:

  • Safety- provided with a rough surface texture;
  • hydrophobicity— provided by a low degree of porosity;
  • High fracture strength- provided by a greater thickness of the material in comparison with wall tiles.

Facing materials that meet the listed criteria can be purchased at any building materials store.

Tip: Considering that the price of a tile is high, you can save money and purchase a tile fight.
Broken tiles are an order of magnitude cheaper and at the same time it is an order of magnitude easier to lay on surfaces with complex shapes.

Construction works

After we have decided on the choice of building and finishing materials, we will consider how the installation of the shower tray is done by hand. The construction of the pallet is not particularly difficult, however, it is better to plan the arrangement of the bathroom during the overhaul.

Installation instructions include the following steps:

  1. Preparing the subfloor:
    • To begin with, we determine the configuration and dimensions of the bowl.
    • Along the perimeter of the future pallet, we remove the old floor covering, capturing about another 20 cm on each side.
    • On the cleaned base, we carry out waterproofing work, namely, we cover the surface with a layer of bituminous mastic.

Important: If the base is old and its surface crumbles, before applying the mastic, we use special deep-penetrating dust-removing impregnations, such as, for example, concrete contact.
Impregnations of this type penetrate into the porous structure of concrete, polymerize there, as a result of which the thickness of the base is more dense.

  1. We prepare engineering communications.

The preparation of communications consists in laying a ladder at the place where, as expected, there will be a drain in the bowl.

Polypropylene (gray) pipes with a diameter of 50 mm can be used as a drain pipe. Especially under the socket of these pipes, you can pick up a siphon (ladder) that is installed directly into the concrete.

Important: When bringing the sewer pipe to the drain, you need to bring them to such a height that the plane of the bowl has a slight slope towards the drain, and then the water will go by gravity.

  1. Let's start building:
    • First of all, on a pre-prepared base, we arrange the formwork.
      For formwork, you can use various sheet materials that are not subject to rapid destruction when in contact with water. For example, formwork can be made from laminated plywood or fiberboard.

Considering that pallets are mostly oval or semicircular, strips of old wide plastic lining can be used for formwork. Such material bends well, and therefore the formwork can be given any shape. Moreover, the lining width of 25 cm is enough to fill a high side.

We install one lining opposite the other, bend it at the right angle and fix it with dowels and clamps.

    • In the internal volume of the formwork, we lay out a reinforcing mesh made of steel wire with a cross-sectional diameter of at least 3 mm.
    • Next, prepare the solution in accordance with the indicated proportions.
    • Pour the solution in portions into the formwork and immediately level it so that it penetrates into all cavities, and so that there are no voids left.
    • We cover the top of the concrete with plastic wrap and leave it for several days to set.
    • After 2-3 days, we dismantle the formwork.
    • We prepare the solution and fill the bowl 2 cm below the level of the sides of the ladder.
    • We cover the concrete with a film so that it does not crack and wait 3 days. Then we remove the film.

    • From the sides of the constructed barrier to the edges of the drain hole, we stretch the cords that will serve as a guide.
    • We prepare a cement-sand mortar without crushed stone at the rate of 1 to 2. We knead “liquid glass” into the solution.
    • We draw an inclined plane along the cords with a solution.

Important: To prevent the solution from flowing, make it thick.

    • After the constructed bowl dries, cover it with a thin layer of "liquid glass". As a result, the structure will be hydrophobic and the concrete will become more durable, as it will not release all the moisture outside ahead of time.
  1. Tiling work.
    • We apply tile adhesive with a layer thickness of 5 mm to small areas of the pallet.

In the photo - an example of tiling

    • We lay out a tile fight over the glue layer, so that the pieces of ceramics adjoin each other with a gap of 2 mm.
    • We immediately level the surface so that some pieces of the tile do not protrude relative to the surface of other pieces.
    • After the tile is laid, but the glue has not yet dried, we take a match, go through all the gaps and pull the glue out of them.
    • The resulting gaps are filled with tile grout.

Conclusion

So, we talked in detail about how to build a shower tray. Any questions left? We recommend watching the video in this article.