Hi! Thanks for signing up for the wedi first time installation assistance program.

We wanted to take a few minutes to walk through a couple things that set the expectation for yourself and for us to make this day (when we join you on site) a great success. Today, we want to just walk you briefly through four things that we will need to cover here before we meet on site.

One is to prepare for the product, then we want to take a look at how to prepare the job site, and then thirdly, the tools. And last but not least (also super important): how to prepare yourself. 

So the first thing is to determine what product you want to install on your first 3D project. Now, if you’ve never done this before, there’s a couple things to really check up upon. Things that are important to determine for example: which shower size (or which shower product size) you want to install and that has a lot to do with the dimensions of the shower space we want to install in.  A very critical thing for us to know is where the drain is located relative to the frame walls, as well as to the curb. The one thing to do is check all those dimensions from the center of the drain to each of the walls, as well as to the curb, and then project that onto the shower base that we do have. Now there is a resource that helps you here that we offer, we call it the Technical Handbook – it’s where you find a lot of the relevant drawings that show you those dimensions. You pick the right one, and the rest is a breeze. Please make sure with your local wedi distributor or retailer that the product is going to be on site and ready to go. 

Okay, let’s talk a moment about preparing the actual job site as you find it when there’s no product installed yet. Doing this right and prepping the framing, the subfloor, everywhere – all the structures we install are really the foundation of a safe installation, and it needs some attention to detail. Conditions should be done before we come and install with you because otherwise, this may take a lot of time to make corrections. So here’s a couple things that are very important for safe installation: starting on the floor we want to make sure that we have a load bearing structure which means the floor is free of deflection which can actually hurt the product later in the installation. If there’s too much movement in the subfloor, it can break your product, your tile, your grout, which can be largely avoided by simply having solid plywood sheets over solid framing structure below to the floor joists. A simple way to figure out if your floor is load bearing is by trying to detect any kind of bouncing movement while you walk and maybe storm or drop your heel on on the plywood itself and if you find there the the plywood subfloor feels solid and it’s not piece together for multiple pieces then we have typically enough confidence to go on here and install the first part that day which is your shower base, right?  We also do need a drain floor waste pipe that comes out of the subfloor, that’s what we connect our shower pan to. The plumber typically installs that and best practice will be to inform the plumber ahead of time to just leave the 2-in pipe sticking out from the subfloor, so that we together can cut this flush to the subfloor in most of our installations. That’s where we connect and that means flush to the surface of your plywood subfloor or your concrete slab. Now there’s one different shower system that’s our Curbless Installation System which needs us to later cut that pipe down to 5/8 of an inch below the surface of the subfloor. Otherwise, we need a 5-in diameter cut for your plywood or down into the slab and within those five inches we need clear space – so no floor joists should obstruct that area because our drain unit will recess into that area. You want to make sure that the subfloor in itself is flat but also level, so here’s how you measure or level along the long side of the shower space – front and back then, do the same on the sides and then also diagonally across the shower space. Ff that is all level we are perfect. Let’s take a moment and look at the wall framing structure. Now do not measure just once – either on the top or the bottom, but in regular distances so that you can gauge whether the framing studs are actually straight enough to give proper support to the backer board. Next thing to pay attention to is on the wall framing studs plum? Last thing to check on the frame walls is whether the corners are squared up. That’s also very important because our shower pans are exactly square and the wall panels meet in corners in a square fashion so that they can also properly seal up with each other and form that waterproof shower system we want to install here. So make sure the top, middle, bottom.. That whole set up is framed is out squarely. We add little blocks of 2x4s in between framing slats that allows us to give proper support to the bottom of the wedi boards as they connect to the shower base perimeter channels. 

First as we get ready to install the shower base floor will need some thinset mortar that should be on site (so that’s part of how to get the product ready) and we use any sort of a good quality modified motor in most cases that works very well for us. There’s no preference as to brand, so you pick what you would later choose for your tile and what you’re comfortable with. We need some equipment here: a good trowel with a 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch notch, typically two buckets (one for water one for mortar to mix) and then we also need a good dril. Now you can have an actual power drill but you can also use your screw gun and get a smaller drill and make that work. When it comes to modifying our shower base (which happens in virtually all cases because we are in the business of custom tiled showers), we need to cut our shower base from standard size down to a size that fits the overall shower size as well as drain dimensions for the drain location and such. So we do need a circular saw – ideally with a guide, keeps it a little bit cleaner (your cut) and we recommend to use a carbide tip blade because you’re cutting through cement and that would normally wear out/down your regular wood plate. Have plenty of batteries and a charger –  we may need that. Other good tools to have now as we go further into the wall installation, the curb, sealing the joints, setting the fastener points –  certainly a good screw gun, a couple extra tips (we use Phillips screws so that’s mainly what we have here), we need a good utility knife, a couple extra blades the sharper the the blades, the easier and cleaner the cuts (so couple extra blades). We need putty knives to treat the seams with our sealant and spread that flat – you can choose here a metal putty knife over flat seams or one way plastic putty knives (a little bit easier on the surfaces and you know time) and then we have our famous wedi Corner Putty Knife with a specially rounded tip and marks that tell you how to spread sealant (especially in corners) so that you get a wide enough coverage over the seam that keeps that seal safe, right? We do need (for the drain installation to pressure fit and tighten the pressure of the drain to the 2 inch pipe) a flat headed screwdriver for medium size. Very important – to apply our sealant is the wedi sealant gun you can use that for both the wedi sausages as well as cartridges, you just need to make minor modifications to the gun to work that. Handy to have is a saw, particularly when cutting curves (for example if you need to miter curbs when you install them around two sides of the shower base). Torpedo levels as well as long levels might be handy when you check, for example, the slope or the pitch of the curb to verify that it’s all in place, or you have tight spaces where you just want to see that everything is good.  Speed squares come in handy when you cut again curb in a mitered and fashion or to get a nice angular cut that’s exact. Very important tool here – a good measuring tape (a very good one, new ideally) keeps you safe with all your cuts. It is a very good practice to cut and dry fit wedi parts before joining them together. More important is that measuring is never a problem. When cutting wall boards so when cutting wedi boards or when making or marking cuts on shower basis that you want to make, it comes in very handy if you have a T square straight edge on hand (at least 4 feet, better 5 feet) to make for clean and straight cuts. Last but not least, and you can see very few simple tools here that’s how we designed our system, very important is PPE (personal protective equipment). For example, what you will need because you’re making cuts with power tools –  are safety glasses. If you’re cutting through cement, you would want to have a respiratory mask just for that purpose. Now because we’re using power tools like the mixer for the thinset motor as well as for cutting the base, are ear plugs. Ear protection can make a lot of sense especially if you are sensitive to that. Last but not least, after a couple hours of wedi installation, you’re all done, and you look down and you see maybe a little sealant here and there that got stuck – this is a very, very aggressive adhesive, which it needs to be by design (that’s very good for the installation) but it may be also very tough to get that off your hands so get yourself a couple of urethane wipes or similar material that keeps your tools clean as well as yourself. That’s really it, that’s all you need! 

There’s a couple more things you can do: for one, you may not remember everything we talked about here today in our short video here, so here’s again a great resource for you – that’s our Technical Handbook. We also have the wedicorp.com website, where you find instructions, details, requirements, limitations, things like that that can tell you exactly everything that we went over here in this special video. There’s also, when in a pinch: on our product boxes, there’s a QR code that when scanned gets you to a link where you can then pick the product you are going to be installing and then you can choose between reading through or reviewing the installation manual or you can pick the installation video. That will make it much easier for our technical sales support manager when he joins you because he doesn’t need to start from scratch, but you already know the wedi installation in principle. What’s left for us to do in those a few hours when we join and get you safely on the way to install the system very fast and very safe (and show you a lot of tips and tricks and techniques in the process!), we can do that in a way that you can also already pick up on some of the things you have done previously. 

So guys we’ve come to an end here with our small introduction here on what to expect when We join you for your first time installing wedi, so I’d like to thank you for signing up for the program. I think that’s great that you are getting into the education programs that are very important for us to offer and we also believe it can really help you a great deal in discovering yet another option for how to safely install showers and get them safely ready for tiling. I do also want to say that your expectations that you can have from that day is that we bring you a dedicated technical sales support manager who has installed a lot of shower systems, has a lot of experience, many times from the trade, so you can expect great, service good tips and tricks, and you know certainly also at the end of the day a wedi t-shirt, we’re going to certify you. So we’re going to have a great time together! Really important once more is that the preparation part is really working out well. We would like to ask you to work with our technical sales support managers in terms of getting with them really quickly once you sign up. We will contact you, but then speak with us about anything special that might be going on on your project side – your schedules, perhaps you can give us some flexibility so that we work at your job with high priority into our schedules and make this work so it’s working best for you. Yeah! So once again, thank you very much for signing up and all the best!