re: shower tile replacement options (no grout)

If they purchased the grout from Home Depot ( I know you said the sealer was from there); it was probably PolyBlend which should be fine if they didn’t use too much water when mixing. Also, it is quite possible they used a pre-mixed grout. I think those are a little better now, but when it was first introduced it had many drawbacks.
In any case that doesn’t really help your current situation, but I would not let that dissuade me from a nice quality built shower. If done right it should last for decades.

Go look at Floor and Decor it’s a wall panel product ( nor tile) Panello is the brand name looks like stone in a 3’ x 7’ panel tongue and groove. It can go over existing ceramic tile and runs 10$ per foot. I just used in our travel trailer and it’s such a huge upgrade. If the salesman doesn’t know what it is it’s the last display on the way to the restrooms

What is the correct water proofing strategy for cultured marble? My cultured marble shower leaked horribly but unbeknownst to me for a long time. When I demoed it, it was surprising to me that there was no membrane behind/under it. If water made it thru the caulk lines at the joints, the water was in your wall. I was shocked by this after doing a lot of research on shower installs. I went to a local dealer that specializes in cultured marble installs. They informed me that their installs are exactly like the one that failed on me before. They said I just need to touch up the caulk joints periodically. Is this really the strategy? I think I’d rather have tile with a waterproof membrane under/behind.

No membrane, just moisture/mold resistant drywall. The custom pan they put had higher walls than most pans I've seen, and also had some kind of barrier at the bottom. To me, it would seem impossible to leak at the pan level caulk lines. Only way I could see leaking happening is at the four butt joints of the walls. It'd be pretty easy to see where caulk lines would be failing in those corner butt joints, which is an easy patch job.


This looks like the exact type of install process:

quote:

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Is that flange and pan a single piece? Also, what about the side with the curb?

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1. Yes
2. The way they did my curb was put like a u-shaped trim piece cap over the pan. Like in this pic from google. So even if the grout line at the curb fails, water is not climbing the pan sides.