A Schluter Experience

I am a member of the John Bridge Tile Forum, a tiling website where other tile setting mechanics and diy'ers gather to talk about tile and discuss about the rights and wrongs of installing tile. I guess I discovered this forum by accident around the age of 20 and I decided to join. I learned alot about other ways to set tile besides the ones I knew about. I also learned about a product called Kerdi made by Schluter. It's a shower membrane applied to drywall and it makes your shower waterproof. I said to myself blasphemy and instisted drywall could not be installed in showers and this company was clueless on how to build a proper shower. I read many posts though on old time tile setters who switched over to this product and loved it, so I guess in reality I was a bit curious about Schluters product.

Schluter also makes another product for floors called Ditra, its orange and looks like a large giant waffle sheet made of plastic. I saw this product and said, plastic on floors? No way! Anyways, people on this forum always praised this product, actually both of em' and insisted they were wonderful but, I refused to budge. About 2-3 years ago a customer wanted a full bathroom installed with travertine from floor to ceiling and you guessed it they wanted Kerdi on the walls and Ditra on the floors. Customer purchased everything and had it for us to install, the person working with me was clueless never saw the stuff at all either. Then I remembered the orange stuff from the JB forum and I spoke up and mentioned that I saw it on the internet. We watched the DVD and felt pretty confident installing it, but we were angry that it wasn't the way we "normally" did things. Normally we would hang 15 lb tarpaper and 2.5lb lathe and float the walls with wall mud with a traditional vinyl pan. Then we would install tar paper on the floor and wire it and float the floor with mud making it flat and level. We followed the Kerdi and Ditra install with 12x12 honed travertine on the walls with a glass listello. The floor consisted of 18x18 travertine installed on a running bond pattern. We grouted the job, shined the tiles up and caulked everything and the job was complete. Last fall I was back in the house working, I went into that bathroom and it looked like the day we had just left. The corners were perfect, the floor was solid as a rock and the bathroom was immaculate. I was amazed, this sparked an interest for me. The first thing that went through my mind was, the JB forum guys were right! I got online did my research and with help from another tile setter was able to attend the Schluter school in Clemson, South Carolina and get trained on the products. I am now trained to install both Schluter products (Kerdi & Ditra) in my area and have been installing since I got back.

Forming drypack around Kerdi drain




Putting the finishing touches on shower pan