Queenstown · Wānaka · Central Otago
Tiled showers & waterproofing
The shower is the hardest square metre in the house. It is also the one most often rushed.
What is included
Fall formed in the screed and set out with a laser level, so water reaches the waste from every point of the floor — a measured fall rather than an approximate one.
Membrane to AS/NZS 3740: bonded corners, the correct upstand height, the correct coats.
Cure time before tiling, allowed for in the programme rather than squeezed out of it.
Niches and benches built with fall and a membrane that turns the corner properly — the two details that leak most often.
Movement joints where the standard requires them, including the shower's internal corners.
Tile-over-membrane penetrations sealed at the mixer and the waste.
Why this costs what it costs
Cure time is a day we charge for and nobody sees
The membrane has to be dry before it is covered. That is a day on site with no visible progress. Pricing it honestly makes our quote look slower and dearer than the one that skips it. It is the single biggest reason showers fail.
Fall is formed, not faked
A floor that drains is a floor shaped in the screed. Getting the fall out of the adhesive bed instead is faster, cheaper, and leaves water standing in a corner for the life of the shower.
Niches are a small job priced like a big one
A tiled niche is five waterproofed internal corners in a space the size of a shoebox, plus a set-out that has to line up with the wall around it. Done properly it takes a disproportionate amount of time. Done quickly it is the first thing that leaks.
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Questions
- My shower is leaking. Can it be repaired without redoing it?
- Occasionally — a failed silicone joint or a cracked grout line can be genuinely local. But if the membrane has failed, a surface repair buys months, not years, and the damage underneath keeps going. We will tell you which one you have before you spend anything.
- Is there any record of the waterproofing once it is covered?
- We photograph the membrane before it is tiled over, and those photos are yours on request. Ask for them on any job, by anyone — a membrane nobody photographed is a membrane nobody can vouch for.