So the ceramic (?) soap holder popped off of my shower wall yesterday. The entire shower is tiled. I went to the hardware store to see what needed to be done, and they sold me a tube of tile adhesive. “Make sure to scrape all the previous residue off”, they said. I head home, grab my scraper, and scrape the 6"x5" void where my soap holder previously resided.
The adhesive came off pretty easy, but there was a brown paper that came off with it. My walls are plaster, which is what I assume I’ve run into behind the paper. Does this paper need to be replaced? Do I apply the tile adhesive directly to the plaster? It would seem to me I need to treat the wall with something before doing that - any suggestions?
It’s bucket-baths for me until then, so quick answers would be greatly appreciated.
I’m guessing that water leaked behind the holder, softening the gyproc board and its paper front layer, untill the top layer of paper peeled off; the brown paper behind is what’s left of the drywall paper layer. If you are lucky, it was just a matter of poor gluing and no water was involved. I doubt it.
Theoretically you could just glue the tile back on. (I did a whole tub surround with that tile adhesive.) Then you need to grout the gap around it to prevent seepage that would cause a repeat performance. Ouch, buy a bag of grout to get a tablespoon of it. However, how solid is the exposed wall? Does it feel solid like drywall, or soft/crumbly like wet drywall?
If the wall is solid and dry, you simply glue the soap disk back on; Worst case, you replace the drywall. If the gyproc is rotten, odds are that was just the first thing to go and water seepage is happening either through the grout or from the bottom of the tiles. I had to replace my tile when I leaned against the tiles and pushed everything in a few inches because the drywall was so soft. That’s a simple test; push against the rest of the wall in various places and see if a major repair job is in the works. Maybe someone pushed/knocked the soap disk and only cracked the grout around it. Often, where the drywall meets the tub, the finish has flaws that allow water to seep in.
Original house builders rarely use waterproof drywall (usually blue stuff, aquaboard?) since it costs a lot more and nobody sees it unless the soap dish falls off. The plaster inside is waxy to prevent water damage. If you do end up replacing the wall, use this stuff.
Another temporary fix, if the soap disk was over a stud - cut out the exposed drywall and screw a piece of plywood of drywall thickness to the stud, goop everything with caulking to prevent further damage, and glue the soap dish to the plywood chunk. However, rarely do things line up that nicely.
Thanks for the response. Yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion there may be moisture coming in. Fuckity fuck.
I’m going to glue it back on and see how it goes. Nothing is giving around it, and the plaster behind seems solid. Regarding grout: what’s the benefit of using grout over a waterproof caulk?
grout can pass water and should have a sealer on its surface. since you are replacing a small soap holder then i would caulk the cracks and not use grout.
From your description that sounds like drywall ,not plaster.If you scraped all the paper off and exposed the gypsum,nothing will stick to it.If that’s the case you need to cut that piece out and using some ingenuity,install a new piece of drywall to glue the soap dish to.
Here’s my ingenuity input for that…Cut the bad drywall out, probably the entire area where the soap dish was. Then find a thin piece of wood. My first though was a few paint sticks. Glue them behind the opening. But I have a slightly better idea.
Get a few thicker pieces, maybe a half inch thick and a few inches longer then the opening…you’ll need 4. Put some glue on the ends of one of them and get it behind the dry wall, now hold the other one on the front of the tile and run one or two screws through the two pieces of wood…this will clamp the back piece until the glue sets. Do one at the bottom and one at the top. When it’s dry (at least a day) cut a piece of drywall to fit (or just a chunk of wood of the same thickness as the existing drywall, it really doesn’t matter), screw it to the braces and attach the soap dish and caulk it.
Also, here’s a tip for you, get a tension style shower bar and cheap curtain to hang along the back wall of the shower and the you can resume normal showers and not have to rush the project.
Im not an expert by any means. The wife and I put in tile in our living room last year and that is the extent of my experience, but afaik tile is not intended to be put right on drywall. There should be some sort of backer board behind your tile. I would think drywall would have too much flex? In older homes they often pressed the tile right into concrete. Also it is my understanding that you should have some sort of impermeable layer between your shower and drywall?
If this is true, then I don’t think you need to cut the wall open and replace the drywall behind it. Just glue the soap dish back into place and caulk or grout around it.
For anyone else coming into this thread with a similar problem, if the wall isn’t quite so solid behind there or is flaking off or showing other signs of water damage, then yeah, it’s time to cut out the damaged section of wall and fix it. I personally use concrete backer board instead of drywall, but if you do use drywall, make sure you use the green stuff and not the regular stuff. The regular stuff completely falls apart when it gets wet.
If you are replacing a chunk of wall, getting the height right can be tricky. You have to plan for the thickness of the tiles as well as the thickness of the glue. If you are careful, though, it’s not that bad.
You only need to cut out the plaster if it is weakened buy the damage. If it is solid you just need to seal it again. You can take ordinary white glue and mix it with enough water to make it easy to apply with a paint brush (this is called sizing). Paint on a generous coat and let it dry. You should end up with a shiny dustless surface that the adhesive will stick too. Glue on the tile, let it dry for a day and then grout. If you have to use the shower, cover the repair up with tape and plastic so it doesnt get wet. You should use a good grout sealer on the whole shower to help slow down penetration of water behind the tile.
It used to be fairly common practice to just mastic tile onto drywall for a shower, but grout really is not water proof, so this system is prone to failure. Standard practice now is to use a waterproofing membrane like Kerdi, or a roll on waterproofing compound like Redguard. Tile backing should at least be moisture rated drywall, but preferably a moisture proof product like cement board, Denshield, Hardie Board. The tile council does not recommend mastic/tile adhesive for wet areas or large format tile, most contractors seem to still use it though.