Possible botched shower enclosure installation. Help!

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Pleasehelpme

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**please note** the photo is sideways. It uploaded that way for some reason.

Folks....I'm a first time poster. This isn't exactly do it myself but I'm looking for advice from people who know this stuff and I have been lurking in the forum and see a bunch of folks who hopefully can advise me here.

I hired a local contractor with a very good reputation to gut and remodel my bathroom. Everything looks fine except for one major thing that is really bothering me. They are using swanstone for the shower enclosure. Ceiling and three walls. Everything looks good except for the bottom left portion near the floor of the wall where the shower controls will be.

They glued the swanstone to a plywood sheet. The bottom of the swanstone is not making contact with the wood because the lip of the shower pan is there. That tells me they measured something wrong. Why didn't they just add a thicker piece of plywood?

I am attaching a photo of what I am describing. I had a guy over the other day who is going to install frameless glass doors. He wasn't too thrilled about the problem but said he could get a door in to work fine.

The main contractor said, "this is very common" and "it happens all the time" and it's "not a problem". Somehow I don't believe it happens all the time.

What do you folks think of it?

image.jpg
 
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Welcome to the site., The door guy may be able to work with it, but you will have to look at what ever he comes up with. The backer should have come out past the flange and drywall should have been spaced out to match. That line should be plumb and straight.
 
nealtw said:
Welcome to the site., The door guy may be able to work with it, but you will have to look at what ever he comes up with. The backer should have come out past the flange and drywall should have been spaced out to match. That line should be plumb and straight.
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Should I insist they rip it out and place a thicker backer board in there? Is that worth the trouble?
 
Pleasehelpme said:
They glued the swanstone to a plywood sheet. The bottom of the swanstone is not making contact with the wood because the lip of the shower pan is there. That tells me they measured something wrong. Why didn't they just add a thicker piece of plywood? QUOTE]

Well ... I flipped your pic so I could stop hurting my neck ... If there is a lip on the tub, the wall should be faced with tile backer (Wonderboard). This pushes the swanstone away from the wall enough so the swanstone section would not be sitting ON the tub, it would be just past the lip. (see pic) This would prevent the kick out. It would allow caulking the line of the connection between stone and tub. The gap along the side of the wall is filled with a bullnose treatment.

These guys are BS-ing you ...

SHOWER.jpg

TUB WALL.jpg
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This is very upsetting. Your diagram tells me a lot. Is this fixable? The plumbing is already roughed in. The room is tiled. Vanity is in. I am not sure what I should do here. If this is not ripped out and fixed...and.....as the glass door installer said, he can in fact install a door even with it screwed up like this.....what will the long term consequences of this be?

I'm thankful for your quick, sensible response.

image.jpg
 
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I am sure he can make it water tight. But you hired a pro so would didn't have to deal with stuff like this. I don't think it will ever look right. I would push him for a repair or large discount.
 
nealtw said:
I am sure he can make it water tight. But you hired a pro so would didn't have to deal with stuff like this. I don't think it will ever look right. I would push him for a repair or large discount.
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Thank you very much.

What would a repair entail?
 
It looks to me like they probably measured and cut it from the base to the ceiling. When they installed it, they installed the ceiling panel first which made the wall panel too long by the thickness of the ceiling panel.
I don't know what you're using for a door but I doubt that wall is even close to plumb so anything, short of just a curtain, is going to be off.
They should pull it off, trim it to fit and reinstall. Telling you it happens all the time is just BS.
 
A picture from farther back would help.To me that is very sloppy work and I would not be able to sleep at night.They may be able to make it "watertight" for a while but it won't last long and then you will have a major repair because you'll have water in the walls.
 
mako1 said:
A picture from farther back would help.To me that is very sloppy work and I would not be able to sleep at night.They may be able to make it "watertight" for a while but it won't last long and then you will have a major repair because you'll have water in the walls.
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This is as far back as I have at the moment. Sorry. It's sideways again.
image.jpg
 
That is totally unacceptable as is. They either have to rip it out and redo it correctly or if it was mine I might work with them if there was a way of making it look like it was gone. The door guy is going to need something plumb to work from and that isn’t it.

If there was a way to make another trim piece to round the corner that could me milled out on the back side to closely fit the screw up I might allow that. It might actually look better from the outside anyway as it would make that corner look finished.

The door guy would then have to make his glass to fit a slightly smaller width.
 
I just called the installer. He said he would rip it out and fix it. When I first mentioned it he made like he didn't know what I was talking about. Once I told him I had some professional builders look at it and that they told me it was a "rookie" mistake he said, "OK, we'll fix it". He didn't sound happy.

I'm paying good money for this. Why should I accept anything but perfect work?
 
Is it normal for the shower walls to stick past the end of the pan that far? Something looks unfinished. On both ends.
 
bud16415 said:
Is it normal for the shower walls to stick past the end of the pan that far? Something looks unfinished. On both ends.
Click to expand...

In my world they would have be cut tio fit to the floor. But that depends on the sample or picture the OP approved in the beginning.
 
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