I looked at handicap accessible showers when I first began building the house because I knew my wife's arthritis was going to get worse as time went by. I wanted to be able to roll a wheel chair into it without getting bumped by a lip or edge and shower curtains have always just bugged me so I thought and thought and decided I could build one specifically to my tastes from tile for the same or less as a prefab one would be. I asked a few people and was told the way they used to do it was with a shower pan, which is basically a thick sheet of rubber like a pool liner that you use to seal the floor and then cement over and finish with tiles. They make a special drain that secures around the hole you need to cut in the rubber water tight and then a second drain screws into it to allow for about an inch or two of cement and tile putting the finished drain flush with the surface.
The house took me seven years to build so by the time I was ready to actually tile the room they had come out with some heated floor systems for warming tile floors and I splurged and went with a single ribbon system instead of the mat system since my floor was oddly shaped.
I got it on EBay and can't remember what I paid but I think it was around $600 for the entire kit including a thermostat that keeps the floor just a few degrees above the room air temp. You can get bigger systems to actually heat the floor but that seemed to expensive and unnecessary in Florida.
The house took me seven years to build so by the time I was ready to actually tile the room they had come out with some heated floor systems for warming tile floors and I splurged and went with a single ribbon system instead of the mat system since my floor was oddly shaped.
I got it on EBay and can't remember what I paid but I think it was around $600 for the entire kit including a thermostat that keeps the floor just a few degrees above the room air temp. You can get bigger systems to actually heat the floor but that seemed to expensive and unnecessary in Florida.
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Since I designed this house I had a lot of leeway as far as moving a wall and inch or two if something wasn't gonna fit very well but that's a last resort kind of thing. If you're going to use standard sized tubs or showers you need to remember to set your wall back far enough so the finished dimension is what you need. By this I mean don't make the mistake of framing in for a 60 inch tub then finding only 59 inches after you sheet-rocked the room kind of thing and remember if you use half inch backer board and tile you also need to allow for the width of the tile and mortar.
I went as far as making the exact finished dimensions in a manner that minimized the amount of tiles I would need to cut. This might not be that big a deal if you're just doing one room but I did all my bathrooms, hallways, entranceways and the kitchen floor in tile so I had to put down about 1700 square feet of it. A little planning ahead goes a long way if you're just in the designing phase...
I used backer board for the walls of the masterbath and the heated part of the floor but in the rest of the house I did mudpans which if I remember I'll do another Instructable on and link HERE. (http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Alternative-to-Using-Backer-Board-over-Subfloor/ )
I chose not to heat the base of the shower itself because I didn't see anyway a low current system could keep up with water flowing over it's surface and I had to line the subfloor with a sheet of shower pan and didn't want to pierce it with the cable guides and I was also worried about running the heating coils up against the rubber. I didn't see much point in heating the floor under the vanity either so I chose the size of the heating strip accordingly, which was about 45 square feet.
I went as far as making the exact finished dimensions in a manner that minimized the amount of tiles I would need to cut. This might not be that big a deal if you're just doing one room but I did all my bathrooms, hallways, entranceways and the kitchen floor in tile so I had to put down about 1700 square feet of it. A little planning ahead goes a long way if you're just in the designing phase...
I used backer board for the walls of the masterbath and the heated part of the floor but in the rest of the house I did mudpans which if I remember I'll do another Instructable on and link HERE. (http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Alternative-to-Using-Backer-Board-over-Subfloor/ )
I chose not to heat the base of the shower itself because I didn't see anyway a low current system could keep up with water flowing over it's surface and I had to line the subfloor with a sheet of shower pan and didn't want to pierce it with the cable guides and I was also worried about running the heating coils up against the rubber. I didn't see much point in heating the floor under the vanity either so I chose the size of the heating strip accordingly, which was about 45 square feet.
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I've been wrangling with mine just to get heated floors in the bathroom, he seems to thinks it's dangerous!
Senseless,I too have been given many of life's hard hits .You inspire me to get all my Dad's shop tools up and running.That's why I gutted the garage! I thank you.
Respectfully, quilter2
As far as the shower is concerned the easiest thing to do would be to build a stall but then that is defeating the purose of being able to get a wheel chair in there.
You could spend some time and chip away enough to fit a trap in the floor but you'd also need a way to tie into a drain line and it might easily turn into one of those weekend projects that last for months LOL.
The strips can be just a few inches from fiber glass unless you are trying to completely heat the room with a bigger strip than I used but the kit will tell you what kind of clearances you need.
Tiling is fun just measure it all out before you start and try and keep your cuts on the exterior walls in case you have a wall thats not quite straight you can hide it with mouldings.
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Super-Top-Secret-Bunker-Project-Video/
My wife's actually getting interested in it and asked if she'd be able to drive her power chair into it. She's have to out the front and down the driveway but I assured her I would not build it without her being able to get into it.
PS: Very nice Instructable. Well done! +1