all right, so welcome to part two of how toinstall schluter kerdi-board. in this video we’re going to complete the project andshow you how to make it entirely water-proof. so let’s jump into the tutorial right now.okay, so now we got all the wall board up. now all your seams need to be covered withthe kerdi, and you’re going to thinset that in. what i recommend when you get that kerdi-bandis pre-cutting everything to fit rather than trying to fit it in after the thinsetting.because one thing is if your utility knife scores any of this, then you’re jeopardizingthe water-proofing. and it could be kind of cumbersome once you’ve got the thinset inand try to cut this. so i recommend trying to cut all the pieces you need. now you needit for all the seams. you need it for around
the niche because there’s a seam there aswell. and you’re going to need them for every screw hole that you put in. and forthose, all you need to do is just basically making a little square. so this actual membraneis 5â€. so 5†x 5â€, 5†x 4â€. something like that. so cut a bunch of these so thatyou can go over every screw hole that you punctured into. so we’re going to pre-makeall those before we mix up the thinset. okay, so you have to thinset all the kerdi-bandover the tub flange, where you’re going to fill in over the kerdi-board and the tub.and then over every screw hole and all the seams. and what we’re going to use is aproduct called ardex x 77. now this is a pretty high quality thinset. it’s a non-sag thinset,not that that matters for the kerdi-band.
but it is high quality. it’s a fairly expensivethinset, but i like to use it because when you use it for mosaics, it’s non-sagging.so say like when you’re doing a 12†x 24†tile and you’re going to do a 3â€mosaic accent in between. this allows that 12†x 24†to sit there and not move. soyou’re not putting all that pressure on that mosaic. so that’s the reason i liketo use it. just be careful of what you buy. you want to make sure. if it’s not ardex,you want to just go with an unmodified if you’re going to go with another type ofbrand. so the first mix that we’re going to dois just going to be a little bit thicker so that we can fill in the tub gap. and thenthe rest of it’s going to be fairly loose
mix. you want to make it really—i don’twant to say “soupy†but—something runnier than you would actually set tile in becauseyou want to be able to get this stuff as flat as possible. so you kind of want to make itsomewhat loose. but for filling that tub deck, we’re going to make it a little bit thicker.i’m not going to use too much because i don’t need to fill in that much. so i kind of want to make itlike pancake batter where it’s pretty thick and doesn’t really just fall off the trowel.that’s kind of the consistency that i want just to fill in that tub deck. and then we’lladd a little bit water to make this a little bit looser so then we can embed the kerdieverywhere else. but you don’t want this stuff to sag out of that joint. we don’twant that.
i always like to start with my bottom bandand then do the corners going up the side of the wall. i guess it kind of just makessense where that corner wall—where the water hits the wall coming down—kind of flashesover the bottom stuff, not that it really matters all that much.i guess i should mention this is actually a kerdi trowel. basically it’s an 1/8â€x 1/8†notch square notch trowel. but the schluter brand they do sell the trowels fortheir products. so 1/8†isn’t very much. it’s just really enough to embed that membrane.so i’m just using a drywall knife to smoothen things out. you know i like to use just afull piece for the whole corners so there’s no gap here in the corner. make sure you’renot bulging out of the corner. you want to
make sure when you put your trowel in there,that sits nice and tight. it’s not a bad idea for your first time, just pull this backand make sure you’re getting good coverage on it. you want to make sure that you cansee that this is actually getting embedded into the thinset. just re-notched it becausei pulled it back. but it’s not a bad idea just to double-check yourself. and you’llsee it’s kind of just like drywall tape. you don’t have the seams that pop. but whenyou coat with mud it’ll start to lift off. take a sponge and wipe off your excess thinset.in our video, steve shows you how to fill in the gap between the tub and schluter kerdi-boardusing unmodified thinsets. now schluter recommends filling in this gap between the tub and theschluter kerdi-board using kerdi-fix. so you
would apply kerdi-fix in that gap. then youwould apply unmodified thinset on the kerdi-board. and you would fill in that gap using yourkerdi-band. so that’s how schluter recommends doing that instead of what steve showed you.now we showed you steve’s method because that’s what he prefers. but if you wantyour warranty to be upheld by schluter, you use their method.the other thing that i wanted to show you is instead of poking a hole into the kerdi-band,you can actually use a pipe seal that schluter has. so you would slide this over the pipe—thisis a â½â€ pipe—you would put your unmodified thinset over the kerdi-board, and you wouldembed this into that, like so. now alternatively, what you could do is apply schluter kerdi-fixin this gap here. so you would just fill this
in with schluter kerdi-fix, and that’s anotheralternative way to fill in the gap between the pipe and the kerdi-board.so basically you trowel the corners like you would apply on mud with the trowel basicallyand embed that in the corner. now don’t overlap that bottom kerdi transition. thisis where it’s just kind of nice. you just fold this in half. it’s kind of nice havingthis pre-cut so you’re not messing around with having to cut this in place.see if you have a little gap like that. it’s not going to be any good. you got to makesure that that gets filled in. it’s kind of easy doing it in the corner.so the sponge is really just wiping off that
excess to make everything smooth. you wantto make this as flat as possible for when you tile. i guess we have the corner seamsup. now we’ll do the butt seams. so when you trowel this, have everything goin the same direction. it’s a little longer, so i’ll have to cut this out. make sureyou’re not cutting on the board. you need to keep it away. once you puncture any ofthis, it’s not water-proof any longer. so i need to get more in this corner here. sooverlap everything, too, by 2â€. so wherever the kerdi is filling over, you want to goover 2†over. looks like i didn’t get that corner very well.okay then on all your screw holes apply some mud. i like just to putty knife it in. doesn’tmatter which way you set them. you can set
them however you want it. just make sure thoseare embedded. i’m just going to use smaller patches for up here at the top and seal it.okay, so now we’re going to do the seam against the drywall and the kerdi. i liketo have my tiles to come out to the side of the tub area just enough so that you don’thave drywall meeting up against your tub. so 1 â½â€, 2â€. and if your using a bullnose tile that’s usually the width that i go outside the tub. so anything that’ssticking outside of that i usually put a piece of drywall tape. you can pretty much mud overthis, too, on the outside. so this seals around that tub pretty good. definitely i want toget the thinset off the drywall area to make it a little bit easier to fit your drywall.okay, let’s do the same thing to the other
side.it’s a good idea to cover this corner made with the kerdi just in case any moisture gotbehind there. if you just troweled over the corner, and if moisture were to get behindthat tile in any way, it would just rot out that corner pretty quickly. it’s a cheapsteel constructed. so by water-proofing it, it ensures it doesn’t happen.so i got a little tear here at the bottom. it’s no big deal. it’s not like i have to get anew piece. i can just kerdi over it. i got a little rip seam, so i’m just going topatch it with the kerdi. and that’s what you could do with any instance that you screwsomething up or say you got your utility knife in there, you can always just patch it upwith another piece.
now i wanted to show you that here’s ourmixing valve. if you want to completely seal this to make it water-proof, you can put ina mixing valve seal in the space here. now schluter provides this. so what you woulddo is place this over your kerdi-board like so and then fill in behind it with the unmodifiedthinset. embed that into the thinset and then you’re good to go. use a 1/8†x 1/8â€square notch trowel to embed the kerdi-band into the kerdi-baord. you can also a â¼â€x 3/16†v-notch trowel to do the exact same thing.so schulter makes both a â½â€ pipe seal and a â¾â€ pipe seal. so whether you’re usingâ½â€ or â¾â€ pipe, you’ve got two different kinds of seals for the pipes coming out ofthe kerdi-board. again you can use schluter
kerdi-fix to fill in this gap here, or youcan use the pipe seal. so once again, we’re just going to use theflat side of the trowel to embed the pipe seal.it’s 100% water-proof. there you go. so really only a couple of hours. i’m readyto tile tomorrow. so this is a really fantastic way to water-proof your tub surround, andit’s really kind of fool-proof. anything you screw up, you don’t make a very nicecut for any reason, just put a piece of kerdi over it. it’s not a big deal. so don’tthink if you didn’t cut straight or something’s off, it allows you to fix your goofs. goodto go, thanks! all right, so that’s how you install schluterkerdi-board in a bathtub or a shower. we hope
that you like this video. if you did, giveus a thumbs up over on youtube. that way somebody else can find the video, and it can help themout. we come out with a brand new tutorial every single week on friday, so you can subscribeto our youtube channel. and the other thing i wanted to tell you about–and this is really cool—steve and i work together to put bathroom repair tutor up onthe interweb. so why is bathroom repair tutor so cool, and why would it help you out versuswatching videos here on youtube? well here’s the deal, when you subscribe to bathroom repairtutor, where you join, you get access to steve and myself. so you could ask us questionsabout your specific bathroom renovation. so not only do you get access to us, you alsoget all the video tutorials that we collaborated
on so you can watch those at your own pace.and when you’re a lifetime member, you always have the ability to ask us some questions—anytime,anywhere. so we really would love to have you as a memberof bathroom repair tutor. it’s our passion to help inspire you to begin and completeyour bathroom remodeling project. so check out bathroomrepairtutor.com.thanks again for watching this video. we’ll see you soon.