Vapor Barrier Shower Wall Tile

In a shower situation you recognize it as steam.

Vapor barrier shower wall tile.

First you have vapor barriers that are installed behind your tile substrate common materials that are used due to their availability and cost are a continuous plastic sheeting with a minimum thickness of 4 mils 15 lb or 15 felt paper some building codes require a minimum grade b building paper to qualify as a vapor resistant barrier. Water vapor that gets behind walls or travels up through light fixtures or hvac grilles into an attic will turn back into water when it cools off. A good vapor barrier should be 10 to 15 millimeter polyethylene. Then the cement board is installed on top of the plastic sheeting.

If you have a steam shower with a steam generator then a vapor retarder is required. But they do generate enough water to need moisture management. Water vapor is water in a gas form. Failure to do that will mean that moisture will soak the greenboard and it will gradually crumble as will your shower wall.

In this highly convenient inexpensive and popular application a moisture barrier of 4 or 6 mil thick plastic is installed directly over the wall studs. Tile is laid onto the cement board with thinset mortar or mastic. Screws secure the cement board to the wall studs. Steam stays in a gas form until it cools down or hits a barrier such as a shower door tile ceiling or a mirror.

It s usually a thin layer of plastic that sits between the drywall and the studs. In a shower you can t have the vapor barrier on top of the greenboard. This is especially important in a shower located on an outside wall but also helps even if the shower is on an inside wall. A vapor or moisture barrier is a layer of protection that is designed to act as a waterproof shield helping to keep condensation away from wood insulation and other mold prone materials that are located behind the drywall.

A seam in an acrylic shower or a cracked grout joint or some missing caulk in a tile shower are all that is needed to let moisture get behind your shower enclosure. If you re using greenboard or drywall for the walls of the shower you ll need to put the vapor barrier between the greenboard and the water. This can take the form of a sheet membrane or a paint on liquid. In the world of tile you need a vapor retarder when you have extreme amounts of water vapor that need to be managed.

But most residential showers don t generate enough water vapor to be problematic. Either a vapor type barrier behind the board or a waterproofing membrane on the front. You have several options to choose from when choosing a vapor barrier and each affects your waterproofing strategy. Moisture barriers stop that.