Why I Chose Cement Board for my Shower 

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Damn it Jeff, I just needed to know best way to patch some small holes on my wall. Ended up binged watching 50+ of your videos so far, walking around the house finding things to repair and remodel, know employees at Home Depot by name and my wife gets scared of what I'm going to rip out next when she sees me watching your videos. These videos need a warning at the beginning.

The most important thing about those screws that you fail to mention is the coating on them. There is an alkaline chemical reaction with cement board. That coating is specific to cement board screws, otherwise they will rust out very quickly.

Ive done 2 bathrooms now with John Mansfields Go Board. Waterproof and much much easier to work with than concrete board.

Hi from Bristol, Wisconsin! Thanks Jeff, after priming and leveling my bathroom subfloor I am putting cement board on my floor for tile. Bathroom side (East side) of house is 1935. Lots of subfloor replaced, some joists were sistered. Little by little coming along!

I love the black and white flashbacks in this series. They are always hillarious!

The blade also tends to track more true when it’s not dragging way too much thru the material. So setting the blade depth to only a bit more than the depth of the material will help you to follow the line for straighter cuts.

Jeff, this is perfect timing for me. I have a shower to tear out and replace. I'll most likely join your forums when I get into it.

Great Video! BUT - After replacing well over 200 shower I can tell you that from experience durock (cement boards) is a lot better that Hardie-Backer or boards that you are using. The boards that you are using are super smooth. If you cut it and don't wipe the dust from the surface with wet sponge your waterproofing or thin set will not stick too well. Sometimes they like to split into layers. When you try to put a screw in the corner or small 1" strip they will crack or brake. Great Video! I love the way you explain everything!

Every time * get tired of working on my basement I watch one of this guys videos and I'm pumped up for another round of working on the basement.

Impeccable timing on this video drop. Just impeccable. 👌Thx!

Hardiebacker is a great product, I always recommended it to my customers when I worked at Home Depot.

Jeff, you are so handy!! Learning a lot from you, and your presentation is awesome and good to follow!! Marcel from The Netherlands

Hardybacker bord are amazing Diy installation, i did exactly the same thing. A TIP for keeping the bord from braking is to pree drill the edges where it like to brake. It works flawlessly. TIP ON Cutting is ezy And less harmful for the Diablo saw blades im still using min. A carbide blade last a long time if it stays cool. Or use a Dimond angle Cutting weel for a grinder. Thanks Jeff glad you liked the product. ❤ cuz thats what i used.

Just redid my own shower a few months ago and I like to stick to the tried-and-true method my father taught me with multiple failsafes. I use a pvc pan liner and 2 thick coats Redguard over my mortar bed before any tile, and cement board (Durock) with 2 coats as well after cement board tape and mortar, leaving a completely seamless finish.

I am in Texas and remodeled my shower a few years back. As far as I know...thats all we use is cement board. Thats what i used behind a tiled shower. It is heavy so I needed help to cut and carry and hold in place.

are you going to be uploading a video on pouring the shower base?

Please wear a mask when you're cutting that stuff. Please. 💜

"and today I'm gonna SHOWER you how to install it." I see what you did there! 😆

Hope you can share this start to finish! I like cement board. Very sturdy for big tile.

For cbu, if you are using mastic to install tile (don't ever use mastic in a shower), the smooth side goes out. The rough side goes out if you are going to use thinset. That said if you are using a roll on membrane like redgard I would do smooth side out anyway simply because it would use less of the membrane to waterproof it. On kerdi it won't matter.

Was literally just researching backing boards for our tiled shower build. Good timing! Will probably go with Schluter Board or GoBoard over cement board but we shall see.

I am in the process of doing a bathroom install in my upstairs. The original upstairs was just a single large room about 40 X 25 and IMHO made a ton of wasted space. The stairwell is near the middle but more towards the north end. The plan for the shower which will be 3' by 7'6" or so is to use the cement backer board on all of the walls, floor, and ceiling so I can tile it all later on. I am also thinking about using one of the roll on waterproofing as well as a membrane of some sort since I don't want to ever have to deal with a leak from the shower because it's going to be over the area I will be using as an office and my plan is to build in a couple walls of shelving in the office not to mention the computers and such which will be there so a leak will be VERY bad. For the cord trick I have been doing that one for years and love seeing someone else teaching that. It's cheaper than twistlock plugs for sure, lol. Personally my outside outlets are twistlocks and then I made a box that sits either at the outlet and converts the twist lock into four 20amp standard outlets or on the end of a cord I made so I can have the outlets closer to where I am working. Another trick that works well though it takes a couple tries to get used to is to use a level as a straight edge for cutting. I just put two marks 1" shy of my measurement as the shoe of my saw is 1" from the edge to my blade. Then I use a couple of the speed clamps to hold the level onto what I am cutting and line the level up right on the marks. Then all I have to do is make my cut keeping the shoe right up against the level. It takes an extra couple seconds to setup but you also don't have to mark a full line either so it ends up taking about the same amount of time as marking the line and then trying to follow it and IMHO is faster because I don't have to even look at a line, I just keep the shoe tight to the level and zip through the piece. Putting up foamboard on the house I used this trick instead of trying to use a knife to cut and it's amazing how quick it works and IMHO it's nearly as good as a factory edge for how straight the cut is. I did notice you didn't put up a lot of blocking for grab bars. I am using pretty much any 2X4 offcut I can to put in blocking for grab bars. I thought about putting in a niche and whatnot but found some corner shelves that are also grab bars so two will go on either side of where the shower head is and then along the walls there will be a grab bar to hang washcloths and towels or whatever it is you would often hang on a thin little towelbar. It costs a little more but at the same time you now have something that won't pull out of the wall and I have seen a bunch of houses and apartments where someone has started to loose their balance and they reach out to grab whatever they can ripping those cheapo towel bars down in the process. My wife who passed away a few years ago was also in a power chair most of the time and needed help to shift around and sadly where we were at there was nothing to help her in the process. IMHO we should build houses (or remodel) with the idea in mind that at some point we could end up in a power chair or on crutches, was told that by an old drywaller who said all door's should be 3.0 doors because wheelchairs go through them better. I did notice you guys don't go into a lot of the DataComm and such though, I worked for a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) and went into a 2 year old house that only had a couple phone lines ran. They also didn't want to have ethernet wires ran inside or outside of the house so they were stuck with a crappy little WiFi Router upstairs and we were constantly going out there for that as an issue. The place I am working on has over 1500 feet of Cat6 ethernet ran so far with a few drops of OM3 fiber in the mix with coax for legacy connections. My office alone will have 12 RJ45 ethernet jacks, 3 RG6 coax outlets, and 6 OM3 fiber optic connections. The living room has two spots that will each have 3 RJ45 ethernet jacks, 3 RG6 coax outlets, and 1 OM3 fiber connection. The rest of the house will have at least 2 spots with one ethernet and one coax, then each room will get a single OM3 fiber drop. I also installed an umbilical which consists of 4 Cat6 cables, 4 RG6 Coax cables, 2 dual OM3 Fiber lines, and 2 OS2 Singlemode fiber lines as well as power to a single box I built on the outside of the house for a demarcation point. It's overkill but still you have to think about the way things are going, I personally don't want to be running cables on the outside of the house. Actually the place had conduit on the outside for 220V power to an AC as well as the stove on the outside and a ton of coax and phone lines that I ripped off the house once most of our stuff was moved in and secure.

What's the difference between Hardiebaker and Durock? I know Hardie is brittle and Durock has glass mesh inside, but why would one or the other be better in a particular situation?

The type of cement board you used isn't available at any stores near me so I had to go with Durock cement board that had Edgeguard. I used Mapei Aquadefense on all of the edges, seams, over screw holes, and even over some small hairline cracks that developed. That stuff cures very sturdy and acts as reinforcement as well as water seal. I put up the plastic used for protecting stuff from paint on the walls behind the cement boards so the board would not directly touch wood. Redguard was not available in my area. I went with a Mustee Durawall glue-up surround instead of tile because I hate tile. I like the look of the glue-up surround a lot better. No grout lines to clean. And it was forgiving of the walls still being a bit wonky. I covered all of the edges with PVC boards and trim so it looks nice to me. The alkalai resistant self-adhesive joint tape was pretty easy to work with. I tried using a scoring tool for cementboard & it didn't work very well. Ended up using a reciprocating saw and oscillating tool, although it was sloppy. Where your cement board cracked a little you could use Aquadefense or Redguard on it before using the tape. It will reinforce it-- as I mentioned earlier.

I’m doing a bathroom now with Schluter board. It’s light and easy to work with.

Cement board is also a great sound insulator compared to drywall, especially when combined with Rockwool.

It also tastes better

I've done two of bathrooms with Schluter Kerdi Board. It's a little expensive but for my house I don't care. I'm in the process of doing my third bathroom that backs up to the first bathroom I did in 2010. When I tore out the shower the other bathroom tub wall back was exposed. This is the shower valve wall, it was perfectly dry, matter a fact it had dust on it. I see many other products that copy Kerdi Board.

Ive used thay red hardiebacker before. Good stuff but water wicks up/in. Not sure how its supposed to be waterproof as is. Using original HB now with a roll on waterproofer.

Me who's just finishing up using cementboard for my bathroom ... phew, Jeff's using that too

Hi, thanks for sharing all your knowledge. In a previous video of on this project, I thought Jeff mentioned insulating the interior walls as well as the exterior wall but here only outside wall insulated. In my previous well built home, there was no interior insulation to help soundproof "bathroom sounds" and I am very much considering insulating interior bathroom walls ( against kitchen, bedroom, another bath) in our bathroom renovation. Can you say why you didn't do interior wall insulation in your double wide? Thanks in advance.

Have you tried GoBoard? Light weight and very easy to handle and cut with a utility knife.

It would be hilarious if the guy mowing his lawn was shooting a youtube vid about lawn care and rolled his eyes at the sound of the saw, LOL.

The handy canadian dad we wish had. Mine? Hey son let's finish your basement and I'll show you how. Starts, doesn't show me how and now I'm left with a half finished basement.

Obligatory Jeff should wear a mask when cutting cement board, "silicosis is no joke" comment

I’m sure you’re comfortable with this cement board. However I will never use it again. I’ve converted to Schluter. And I might give go board a try. But this is heavy, awkward and messy. To each their own. It’s still a free world.

I'm getting ready to replace my leaking toiled and I'm pretty sure the subfloor has some slight water damage. I was thinking about replacing my custom shower I did in the late 90's at the same time. I used a thick rubber liner extending up the walls about 8" or so, layed concrete for the floor over the liner for the pan and used cement board for the walls (over the rubber liner and on top of the cement) and tiled over it. It worked really well, no leaks, no issues in 26/27 years. two questions - do I need to tear the shower out? and can I use cement board under the toilet to protect against any future leaks. note: I live in a rural area and have little to no building code to follow but I still like to do things correctly.

Heres my technique.... 15 lb paper on studs.... hold my cement board off the subfloor about 5 inches which allows the pan to recess into wall. Then with lathe and mud fill the recess area perfectly vertical. Run wall tile...mud floor and tile floor. Never had a failure with over 200 showers installed. These new systems seem to have a high failure rate.

I'm happy to see this since it confirms my own experience (I guess that means confirmation bias). I rebuilt a shower about 9 years ago using an American Standard acrylic pan, UT-crete cement board, and Redgard for my waterproof membrane. I used stainless steel screws (I use only SS for fasteners in wet/humid environments), and added another level of waterproofing by using a two-part tile adhesive called "Inament E-73") made by INAX (not sure if it's available in US) made specifically for tiling in wet environments (unlike cement-based adhesives, the Inament is virtually impervious to water). I decided to use Redgard instead of other options then available due to its simplicity and cost (I had to have it shipped to Japan). I'm not a professional, though, so I did "due diligence" in my planning, meaning I did a lot of research on the issues beforehand, and I read and followed the installation/best practices instructions for these products, especially for the Redgard, since I've seen a lot of misinformation about it floating around the net. If you follow the instructions, this kind of installation is probably the easiest effective way to redo a shower.

13:38 Jeff love your videos, instruction and care with your work. I am on the home stretch of a renovation right now. My contractor put this red board up in the new showers. He used roofing nails in these tight spots to avoid that breakage, just curious on your thoughts with that? Also, just want to say thank you for all the amazing content and I agree with some of the other patrons. I’m finding a lot more work for myself to do. 😂 Cheers!

Slope pan, liner, THEN Hardi

I'm surprised you're not wearing a safety mask. Hardie's Safety Data Sheet recommends using an N-95 (minimum) respirator/dust mask. The raised dust from cutting cement board contains crystalline silica, which is really bad for your lungs. Keep all living things away from the work area.

Love your videos. Question: I am replacing an old 60" fiberglass tub/shower with a Transolid walk-in shower kit. I need to raise the floor under it by 1.75" to match 2 layers of tile in the bathroom. I'm planning to use 2 layers of 1/2" cement board and one layer of 3/4" plywood to do this. Does that sound reasonable? Thanks, Tom

Here in Florida, it is not true that you can get replacements from Home Depot. I went there and was told that I need to call directly to get from manufacturer.

Im ignoring painting a wall as I watch this educational video.

Great video, good guide on installation! My only question at this point is regarding mold. In my experience helping friends and family, the drywall rarely is falling apart from the moisture if it dries out, but the mold is awful. Green drywall is supposed to inhibit it but we know how that goes... I cut it out if moldy, whether it's in good shape or not. Does the cement board have features to inhibit mold, or is it the surface prep afterwards or what? If it's solid but moldy I'm in the same situation.

save time and use goboard, you might have to order it, but super quick when you factor in waterproofing

Thats James Hardie Hydro Defense backer board, it is 100% waterproof already. All thats needed is waterproofing on the seams and screws. I wound up using it in my bathroom I built almost two years ago. A couple of negatives, its a nightmare to cut as far as the dust is concerned and you must use the circ saw and blade setup he has, you cant cut it with a standard cement board knife, just wont work. Second, I would not tile right over it again after my first experience with it, you have absoultely zero time before the thinset skins over and starts drying out when you apply it to the board, it pulls the moisture right out of it, dampening it before hand did little to mitigate that. And lastly, its really heavy, no joke. Its a great product, but I wouldnt use it again.

Is it better to go with Hardiebacker or Durock? Most places I've seen carry both.

Maybe you commented somewhere in the video that I missed, but why Concrete board over Kerdi? (cost?) Planning a big bathroom Reno in the next month and I've been binging your videos like crazy

What do you think about that waterproof Shluter orange kerdi board stuff?

Is it better to use plywood under the cement board ?

Restmaterial is chemical waiste by the way. In Europe we use those blocks to build walls and then tile them.

For those that don’t know you can buy 4x8 sheets of cement board from your local drywall supply house.

Mask up Jeff!

how does the cost of this concrete board system compare to the schluter system? Is it cheaper?

Do I need to use red whatever on cement board or I can just place tiles right on the cement board?

Suppose one has a partial gallon of polyurethane for protecting wood that will likely go to waste if not used. Is there any value (or is it too paranoid) in putting a coat of polyurethane on the top edges of the support joists (when you had them exposed) and/or the top layer of that plywood floor? Just in case a crack somehow develops in the shower floor that allows fluid to leak through?

What do you think about the foam backer board

Hi Jeff is there a way to contact you ? Just want to ask something with pictures? Thanks

Cool video.

Any particular reason you went with cement board rather than kerdi board?

nice

Should you not put your 1st board-s on the ceiling, similar to drywall?

Great video. Were you going to insulate that other wall when you go to work on it ( from the other side ) for sound proofing?

Pan liner goes first ooof

the good thing about cement board is it does not absorb any moisture & water, steam, and dampness, are relentless and will find a way through eventually

Kerdi or wedi both are mold proof, getting wet is a non issue...and they have a complete system and accessories.

I wont lie, this series was sooooooooo painful to watch. Can't imagine working on it. That being said I couldn't stop watching. Layman applause!!!

But cement board peels and rots with water and bathroom humidity

Wedi board, pricier material but easy to carry, cut and seal.

How are you going to waterproof it? Can't wait to see because usually if you're doing a traditional in and out system, the pre slope, would already be done and the vinyl liner. But I have a feeling you're gonna use some type of topical waterproofing over that period. This should be interesting..... Also, that is not full concrete board, concrete board is way darker and heavier, that is, fiber "concrete" board, each have their own specific screw. You're using the one for Hardy backer. Inch 5/8 screws are what you're supposed to use normally with that stuff. And the inch and a quarter screws are for concrete walls. So you don't hit the concrete.👍..... On actual concrete board, you're supposed to go 6 inches with the screws on the edges apart from each other and 8 inches apart in the field of the board or not the perimeter. Can't wait to see the waterproofing on this one.

Its putty pad safe to use any risk with skin or eye plz reply

Jeff, prior to installing the cement board, is it necessary to install any insulation?

GO BOARD, the best way to go. Because it's a foam board it won't absorb water and it comes with a waterproof membrane already installed. Bottom line is, faster install and better waterproofing. It can be cut with a knife and lighter to carry.

Unfortunately that cracking due to drilling or nailing too close to the edge is a common problem with all Hardie cement board products!

Question for a pro. Why for a 3×3 standing shower, would someone quote me 20k? Not tiled, an acyril insert. Why are these bath places quoting too high? I understand it is custom made but still, that is insane.

The old cement board you can score and snap. Can you not do that with the new stuff?

I love the comments about safty haha you can tell who doesnt work in trades for a living. I only deal with safty karens you have to deal with youtube karens. How do you do it 😂

I hate drywall - it turns into garbage when it gets wet. How good is that when your A/C wets the ceiling? Everything is fine, but now I have to tear down the ceiling to replace this garbage, for such a small reason? I wonder if it's possible to use cement boards instead of drywall somehow...

When cutting Hardi Backer or any cement based product with a skill type saw you should always wear a mask - the dust generated is deadly

what are your toughts on "Go Board" ?

Does anyone know what happened to the church house? Haven't been updated in a while

Hi 🎉👌

So what exactly is cement board? I have no experience with it at all

Always cement board

Problem is that broken corner now has only 1/4 of the hole edge for the screw to hold on to so basically it has no screw at all that's why it's is an ISSUE when you break a corner like that.

Dust mask!

"mold proof" in the thumbnail doesn't pass the sniff test. Doesn't disintegrate with water damage? Good case for that. But mold grows wherever water goes, and if you get water behind your tiles, mold will grow there.

GoBoard.

What's the reason you would choose cement board over foam board

You dont need a cement board blade for 30 bucks. A 7 dollar avanti 20 tooth blade will cut through 50 boards before it dulls out. Thats what i do.

I wish your camera man would communicate to you to hang on a sec when he can’t get the pov or in focus.

😎⚒️😎⚒️😎

As a popular RU-vidr making a living and showing everyone the "Right way" and "knowing the end from the beginning" Silicosis is a real health issue, whether you use cement sheet twice a year or twice a day, you have a moral responsibility to show safety precautions for the Darwin's who follow your lead verbatim.🤦

You should be wearing a mask and glasses for cutting that stuff . Please show people how to be safer also . Thanks for your vids tho

Wow, you screwed (sic) all the advertising you could out of that video.

That's an unreasonably large shower...

no mask?