[Norm Walters]

I am starting to think the bathroom market is not being tapped into enough with solid surface. I have had customers faces light up when mentioning showers with no grout lines, non porous, easy to clean. What I see as a problem though is the cost v.s. the asthetic value received. You are going after a higher end market client with a solid surface shower, and these folks can be quite demanding as far as appearance. When you look at tile showers, either stone or ceramic, there are all kinds of decorative accessory tiles that make the job “pop”. Maybe if a manufacturer like “Mystera” , which has a great look for showers, started making accessories such as listellos, borders, trims, etc. in exciting colors and patterns it just may take off. Actually some of the bigger fab shops with CNC’s could make alot of this stuff and sell it to other fabs if the idea took off.

[Wags]

I pitched solid surface to Pulte in Aug of 2005. We did a mock up at a house in October 2005, in Jan of this year Sun City Festival went solid surface standard in all bathrooms. For both wet walls and vanities. Total of 7,200 houses over 5 years. Since then I have sold SS wet walls/ vanities at a number of major builders. The time has come. Cultured marble has risen in price while SS has come down. Key is to have the right size sheets to eliminate waste, and no shop time. You take fabrication out and it is only an installer. I carry two sizes of 60″ sheets and several other sizes for tub end walls, and showers. I also will have soap dishes, shower bases and tubs available in matching colors.

One other thing… there is typically twice the sq footage in baths than in the kitchen.

[Reuben Hoff III]

Those of you doing SS walls etc are you using 1/4″ materials or the 1/2″? Also was curious if you put any in that has been seamed together? I have done Swan shower panels, but if the walls are to big and a seam needs to be done they say use batten strip to cover and just caulk it in place ( no rigid seem). It has been working well but was wondering if we could eliminatemore of the caulk. Needless to say most people love it when installed way easier to clean.

Reuben

[Tom M]

Reuben,
We are doing both, as the material yeild and color choice dictates. With the Corian select series, some jobs are actually cheaper with 1/2″. Also, we have been seaming and back battening shower sheets since before joint adhesive came out. When we use the batten strip, as well as the top trim pieces, we rabbet out for an overlap, so we can get more silicone in there.

I’m trying to come up with a corner insert system to interlock the sheets, so they do not need to be scribed, and Wags has the right idea. This could take off big.

Tom

[Norm Walters]

I was talking to Mory the other day about how he is doing showers. He is using 1/2″ material and coving the corners, I told him to post some pics on here, maybe he will.

[Reuben Hoff III]

Okay understand both sizes being used, but what about seams hard seaming like tops or silicone butt joints?

reuben

[Tom M]

Reuben,
I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this, so my apologies if I take you down the wrong road.
We back-battened 1/4″ material when seaming, and have had very good luck. I actually can’t recall a single failure. I am not convinced you need to batten a half inch material hard seam, though. I will be trying it out in my shower and tub soon. Gonna beat the h*ll out of them both, yo.

Mory and the coved corner interests me.

Tom

[Norm Walters]

Mory must be awful busy since I haven’t seen him post here lately. Mory, you are going to have to cut that four hours sleep a night down to three so you can post on here.

[Reuben Hoff III]

Tom,

Not going anywhere except to find out if what I have been told and what actually can do are totally different once again. I agree on leaning to the side of caution but sometimes I think you can go to far. I was told no hard seams in showers just soft silcone seams. I think I could get more showers sold around here if I can elimanate the majority of the caulk. When you say back batten are you then recesseing this in the sheet rock or am I having a mental lapse on follwing your process?

[Norm Walters]

I may be wrong but I believe Mory was talking about coving and hard seaming the corners to give it that “molded” look, which really would look great. Since you end up with a radius rather than a sharp corner, I don’t see the problem.

[Seth Emery]

I’m interested in how Mory is doing this also. We offer thermoformed coved corners. They are “loose” though like siliconed splash. This does make it nice that you can keep the wall panels an inch short of each corner and fit things in easily. It would be cool though to cove the whole sheet and hard seam the panels together at the jobsite if customers are willing to pay for the extra time involved. I guess you would have to stick all of the sheets in the oven so the discoloration from thermoforming, if any, would not be apparent, and you may run into problems if the walls are not at true 90 degree angles. Maybe he’s talking about a tight cove fabricated like a cove on a kitchen counter. Doing a v-grooved cove seems like it may work nice, but I’d be worried about it snapping if the walls were not square. Great keeping us in suspense – seems to be getting everyone’s wheels turning.

Have a nice day,
Seth

[Wags]

The key to wet walls is to eliminate waste and fabrication. I carry 60″ wide sheets in several heights, along with other typical widths. This means you eliminate fabrication and its now just installation. I never did figure out where a 30 X 98 sheet came from. I rarely see an application for the 98″ sheet, it is merely money lost. There are tricks to seaming 1/4″ without a back batton that works…..but since I sell 60″ sheets it will remain my secret !I

I think the shower walls IS the next huge area for SS growth. Not only in new construction but in remodeling also. Solid surface is the single best product for this application in my opinion.

[Shane Barker]

I think your right Wags,

I need to take another look at my wet wall pricing and maybe see if I can get more competitive with the cultured marble guys in my area. I may need to hype this up in my next news letter and see if I get any feed back.

Shane

[Karl Crooks]

Wags is right on, in my past life, we made and installed 1000’s of shower wraps. For tubs we did 3 peices with 60″ back walls and NO trim (I’ve posted on this before).

[Tom M]

Reuben,
When my father was at the first “train the trainer” DuPont class (a hudred or so years ago), he went into depth about both hard seaming the back, and scribing to fit. After they broke for luch, they came back and said officially they will not recommend the hard seams, but they will not ask fabricators to stop.

We recess the batten into the sheetrock, as you asked.

I am currently working on a recessed shelf as an integrated application that, if it works, I will post about here. Only if Wags tells us of a reliable non-battened 1/4″ sheet method.

Oh, and Mory clues us in on his thermoformed corners.

Hah.

Tom

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