Earlier this year, the upstairs shower had a leakage problem. At first I thought it was water going through the cracked hardy backer board that was used as un underfloor. So I used grout sealer to make the grouts more waterproof. But as it turned out, the problem was bigger; besides the cracked underfloor, the shower pan exhaust pipe got loose, so whenever the shower was used, water would leak under the shower pan, through the grouts, underfloor and floor boards onto the kitchen floor below.

So drastic measures were called for, as can be seen here

I removed the tiles, (cracked) hardy backer board and the shower pan.

After that I put a new subfloor in of 19/32″ plywood. I decided to not put the tiles back in, as the floor might work some more and again break the underfloor or tiles.

I managed to get the plywood under the shower wall, so there’s now a solid underfloor that can give a little bit if the beams on which the floor rest work some more.

On top of this floor I will put vinyl click tiles, which are waterproof and more flexible than stone tiles. And warmer to the feet than stone tiles.