Shower Pans For Dummies

November 25, 2009 by Anthony Green
Filed under Ecommerce

You may have never had to see one since they’re usually covered with additional layers, but shower bases are one of the most important components to a bathroom. Without them, you would likely be dealing with bathroom floods just about every time you took a shower. Let’s take a brief look at the world of shower pans.

If you don’t know what a shower pan is, don’t despair. It’s also known as a shower base, which may make some more sense to you. It’s the bottom of your shower and it’s what the tile and everything else sits on top of. The biggest purpose of it all is to control the flow of water through your drainage system.

When choosing a shower pan, there are certain considerations that you’ll want to keep in mind. Namely, the shape of the shower pan will play into whatever you end up choosing. This is due to the fact that your shower pan should take on the shape of your shower.

There are a number of shapes that you can consider using as well. From the standard rectangle to more abstract forms like the pentagon, you’ll have plenty of options when it comes to shape.

It’s also important to take the material of your shower pans into consideration, which we’ll touch upon some more later in this article. To sum things up though, tile and marble showers will go more easily with certain kinds of shower bases.

There are a few more considerations that will go into choosing shower pans. A shower pan liner is one of those things that not all shower owners use, but something that might keep your shower holding up well for a longer time frame.

You’ll need to choose the composition of your shower pan too. Whether you decide to go with acrylic fiberglass or something more traditional like ceramic, this will largely dictate the price of your shower base, in addition to the expected life span of whatever you buy.

Setting up shower pans is likely the most difficult part of the overall process. While there are DIY guides online, you may want to consider hiring someone to install your shower base if you’ve never done something like this before. Get a few quotes before going with someone, as you’re likely to find a better price this way.

Find out more about shower bases and custom shower pans today.