Trench drain for roll in shower

[gigi]

We are remodeling our master bathroom and have designed a curbless shower and we want to put a trench drain across the opening where the curb would normally be. I am having a hard time finding something afordable. Quick Drain is awesome, but $571 for a 40" drain seems crazy.

Has anyone installed or researched these?

I saw in another post that titanium4motion put one in. Titanium - it looks like you use the industrial one that it a strong plastic grate. Is that right? It looks much better than I thought plastic would (if that it what it is.) And our bathroom is about the same size as yours, just a tiny bit bigger - it is 73 x 96. Loved your pictures, too, lots of good ideas.

Any info anyone has would be great! Thanks. I'll post pictures when we get something that looks like anything - it's a big gutted hole right now.

[Van Quad]

When I was researching accessible housing standards and happened upon SaferHome Standard Society, I saw a trench drain in their office. Contact them via their website:

http://www.saferhomesociety.com/

[MSWIFE1]

My parents just put a garage edition on their house and got a trench drain at Menards, its got galvanized grates. Not sure how much it cost them, but you might want to check there. I will try to remember to ask them. Our roll in shower does not have a trench drain as it is poured concrete and has enough slope one was not required.

[Herco16]

I just saw a type of compression type barrier that Mike Holmes used on "Homes by Holmes" that looked cool (and cheap!) It is about an 1 1/2 high and you roll right over it to get in an out. I'll start digging and see if I can find it.


ETA
http://www.grabbardistributors.com/C...ater%20dam.htm

[Quad62]

I was concerned about the high cost of trench drain too when remodeling the shower to roll-in shower. The contractor assured me that there would be plenty of slope, and the trench drain wasn't needed so I went ahead without it. It has worked out very well for us. Water drains very quickly in the shower and there has never been any water spilling out to the bathroom floor. So, with proper slope and drain size, a trench drain may not be necessary.

[JenJen]

My roll in doesn't have a trench drain and it works fine. As long as I'm not sloppy the water all stays inside the shower and the sides have a bit of a slope so that all the water runs toward the central drain in the shower floor.

[gigi]

Herco - we watch Holmes on Holmes all the time, love that show. Thanks for the link!

Van Quad - thanks for the link, I will check that out.

We kind of have our hearts set on the trench drain for aesthetics as much as function. Our house is modern and we are going for a sleek look. Also, we are using large format tiles so not having to slope into a center drain will avoid the difficulty of attractively cutting and laying the tile to slope from four directions. I believe there are some shower pans designed to hold large tiles, but the expense of a special shower pan will probably be in line with the expensive trench drain...

[titanium4motion]

Trench drains

The trench drain I used are NDS Mini Drains and are 3" wide. They cost about $25 each piece 3 feet long. The company that makes them is NDS. Website

http://www.ndspro.com/

You can buy them at:

http://stores.ndstrenchdrain.us/-str...Categories.bok

There are other places on the net to buy them from.

Read over my post of Extreme Makeover: Shower Room Edition at

https://www.carecure.net/forum/showthread.php?t=114669

More pictures and pdf at

https://www.carecure.net/forum/showthread.php?t=133779

Attached is side view of my trench drain setup I have in my shower room. The top view is how I have it. A better design in the bottom view where no grate is needed.

Feel free to email me at titanium4motion@roadrunner.com if you have any further questions.


Ti

[gigi]

Thanks for the links Titanium! We ended up going with this drain:

http://www.myshowergrateshop.com/

We got the one that holds tile so there is no exposed grate a all:



This was much more expensive than the NDS ($350 - but much cheaper than the competitor, Quick Drain, which is $571 for the same size) - but we decided to spend the extra money for two reasons. It looks darn good and we don't have to get someone to fabricate a nicer looking grate. Secondly, it is very shallow, .9 inches, so it is much much easier to fit into our subfloor and concrete board layout. We are doing the work ourselves, and reworking the floor to allow for a 3 inch tall drain would have been very time consuming, and cost at least some amount of money.

I was a bit worried since they have such a weird name, and I could not find any reviews of their product. But, it came in the mail very quickly and it looks great. I'll post again after we've finished the bathroom with an update on ease of installation and how well it works.

Oh, and the pdf you posted is great! Even though that is not precisely how we'll install ours, it gives me some good info on installation. Thanks! (It also demonstrates the 3 inch depth problem I was worried about with the NDS drain. Our subfloor will not need to be "notched out" as shown in the pdf.)

[Van Quad]

Wow! Great solution where a show home result is required. There's nothing I hate worse than an exaggerated slope in a wheel-in shower. This thread is a great topic.

[titanium4motion]

Trench drains

I've seen those trench drains when I was searching for trench drains for my shower room. They appeared at web site Stormtech Pty Lmd:

http://www.stormtech.com.au/index.html

Yes, they are expensive and beautiful. I wonder where yours were shipped from? Paying $450 for a single, $900+ for two including shipping was over kill.

I looked at your web site and I could not find where this company is located or where the products are shipped from?

There is a Japanese company Toto that also makes a trench drain but I was unable to find a local dealer who could get that trench drain even though other Toto products are available here in the United States.

The NDS drains require a little more installation but they still need water proofing membrane under them. The grates I agree are ugly. I went to a machine fabrication shop to have stainless steel one made and it would have cost $400 for material, setup and labor. I can live with it and it serves the purpose. NDS also makes them in different colors too.

Be careful of the faucet you select saying they are "ADA' approved. I purchased a Kohler Stillness faucet and by the ADAAG guidelines there is interference with the mirror. I didn't learn that after the fact. It is still a cool faucet better than Moen products. (Moen is another post.)

A warning for those who have a roll in shower and use a shower chair. Check your shower chair monthly and make sure your bolts and nuts are tight because you put a lot of constant changing stress and strain on the bolts while you are on an incline in a wet environment. One day a bolt may break and you tumble to the floor like what happen to me. That is reason for a flat shower floor.

Post some photos when your room is completed. Let's see what the state of the art shower room looks like in 2010!


Ti

[titanium4motion]

USA distributor

After posting last night I looked through the web site:

http://www.stormtech.com.au/index.html

and they have a USA distributor Infinity Drain, 270 Main Street, Port Washington, New York, (516) 944-7720.


Ti

[gigi]

The company I ordered from is originally out of Australia, but they now have a manufacturing site in Canada. My drain shipped from Canada. It arrived in 4 days. Also, I emailed them using the contact page on their site and received a reply very quickly. I emailed with the guy for a week or so before ordering, he was very helpful and very timely. He even provided me with his office and cell phone number. The level of availability was one of the selling points for me.

Yes, we were lucky I guess that our design only required one 40" drain. I don't think I could have justified it if we'd need two or a much longer one!

[Van Quad]

And which company did you order from?

The company I ordered from is originally out of Australia, but they now have a manufacturing site in Canada. My drain shipped from Canada. It arrived in 4 days. Also, I emailed them using the contact page on their site and received a reply very quickly. I emailed with the guy for a week or so before ordering, he was very helpful and very timely. He even provided me with his office and cell phone number. The level of availability was one of the selling points for me.

Yes, we were lucky I guess that our design only required one 40" drain. I don't think I could have justified it if we'd need two or a much longer one!

[gigi]

Sorry, I thought I posted it earlier - but it is myshowergrateshop.com (out of Canada). (They also have a website myshowergrateshop.au, this is the one in Australia.)