We call our waterproofing standard the S.W.A.N. plan, short for Sleep Well At Night. It is not a product we sell. It is the reason we can walk away from a finished shower and not think about it again.
Tile and grout are not waterproof
This surprises people. Grout is porous, tile has grout lines, and water moves through both. Everything behind the tile is what actually keeps water out of your framing. If that layer is missing, thin, or badly detailed at the corners, the tile looks perfect for about three years and then the damage shows up somewhere you cannot see.
What a proper system looks like
We build on a full Hydro Ban bonded waterproofing membrane: the pan, the curb or entry, up the walls, and detailed into every corner, seam and penetration. Corners and changes of plane are where failures start, so they get banded and treated rather than just rolled over.
Flood testing before tile
Once the membrane is on, we plug the drain, fill the pan and leave it. If it holds, we tile. If it does not, we find out now, when fixing it costs an afternoon instead of a rebuild. Any contractor can say they waterproofed a shower. Flood testing is how you know.
What to ask before you hire anyone
Ask what waterproofing system they use by name, whether it goes behind the wall board or on top of it, and whether they flood test. You will learn a great deal from how quickly they answer. The cheapest quote for a tile shower is almost always cheap in exactly this layer, and it is the one part of the job you can never inspect once the tile is on.
