How to Remove Fiberglass Shower Pan

Mark Donovan of HomeAdditionPlus.com shows how to remove a fiberglass shower pan.

Hi I’m Mark Donovan from HomeAdditionalPlus.com and today, I’m in the process of removing a fiberglass shower pan so we can build a custom shower pan and basically doing a brand new ceramic tile shower. Alright, so the first thing we’re going to do to remove this pan is remove the drained water from the drain pipe. It shouldn’t be any issue. It shouldn’t really be a problem. Well, just in case I decided to do this. So I’m using that turkey baster and just sucking out some of the water in the draining pipe to again, prevent any water spills. It shouldn’t be hanging, but just to be safe. All right he next thing I’m doing is I cut along the edge of the fiberglass panel with a linoleum or vinyl against the shower pan, just so that pulse away nicely. This will break any seal and caulk again along the edge of the fiberglass shower pan. So now that I’ve drained some of the water at the drain pipe, I’ve put a rack in here just to prevent a sort of gas that’s been coming up. And I’m basically going to take my drill and drill some of the rubber plunge material which is a rubber plunge gasket that goes up tight against the draining pipe. We’ll remove some of this material and then the shower pan should be able to lift up around the drain pipe. As I drill the rubber plunge here, I don’t want to go too far and down into the sub-floor, but do you see how we’re going to add just to mend your self. I’ve been working away all the way around over there of the drain pipe. I’m also using a utility knife to help cut around the rubber plunge to help remove some of the material to make it easier to lift the shower pan off the drain pipe. All right. So once we’ve drilled it out, I’ll just a vacuum cleaner to suck up around it, so I can then remove the rag and hopefully let the shower pan out off the drain. Depending upon your particular situation, you may see plunge brackets that are nailed or fastened to the wall studs that go over the shower pan liner. And in that particular occasion, you can remove those clamps or brackets as well, so you can lift the pan up. In this case, they were not, so this pan should lift easily out now. So I’m just using a flat bar and a pried up and I’m using the screw driver to hold down the drain pipe a little bit. And as you can see, it’s coming up really easy. As you can see as we go up, the drain pipe isn’t staying down another plunge just coming out. There we go. So now, we’re just lifting the pan up now to the shower stall area. And as you can see here is our opening for our drain pipe and we’re just about to stage out or we could start building up or our new customs are in the shower. All right, so that’s not what it took to remove the shower pan: basically the drill to drill up the rubber plunge. Make sure not brackets are holding the shower pan to the stud balls. And then if that’s the case, once they’re removed, you simply lift the pan up and out of the shower drain. So at this stage, we’re ready to begin rebuilding the shower to the custom ceramic tile shower. If you have other home improving questions, visit us at homeadditionplus.com today.