Expert: Dave Johnson - 11/20/2007

Question
We live in Wisconsin and hired a tile layer out of the yellow pages.  There is no licensing requirement in our state.  We trusted him to do a professional job as he stated that he did things according to industry standards.  Our research indicates otherwise.  Here's what he did.  We had a tile shower put in by him that replaced a one-piece fiberglass tub/shower.  This is in the basement and is on our basement slab.  Over the slab he directly put a one piece 3/4" plywood that covered the entire slab except the drain hole.  Next he put the flexible shower liner over that.  Then he put a layer of sloped concrete over that and finished the job.  It looks nice, but we have 2 issues with his installation method.
1.  We do not believe that plywood should have been placed directly on the concrete and we fear that this will rot because of condensation issues and cause the tile floor to prematurely rot.  In Wisconsin we experience lots of weather and moisture comes up through the slab and then cannot escape because of the shower membrane.
2.  There was no pre-slope done.  Everything I read says that a pre-slope underneath the membrane should be done.
The tile layer insists that this is how he always does it and he doesn't have to do it any other way since Wisconsin does not require him to be licensed.

Please - any thoughts you have on the subject would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,  Sue  (sek@centurytel.net)

Answer
Hi Sue,
Wow, what a dilemma. I agree that he should NOT have put raw wood directly on the concrete. I also agree with you that the slope should have been FIRST.
The problem is that if he doesn't agree to make the thing right, you probably have no legal recourse unless you had a detailed plan for him.
I guess my advice would be to either live with it and hope for the best, or try and get him to do the right thing.
Best of luck,

Dave