All wet rooms, and this includes bathrooms, should have a floor drain. There are always spills, splashes, the sweating toilet tank, and maybe the occasionally overflowing sink. The floor drain should capture and manage that unwanted water before it can do any major damage and affect durability of other building materials.
We decided on two floor drains: one servicing the barrier-free, walk-in shower, and the second one (the main floor drain) catching any unwanted and occasional spills. The concrete floors are poured and sloped towards the two floor drains. The next task was to waterproof the floor drains. This was sort of a big deal, as the shower drain will and the main floor drain may receive a steady flow of water that should just go down the drain and nowhere else!
The good news was that I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are various drain flashing options available that would do the job. We used the Schluter product in the basement bathroom and the Nobel product on the 1st and 2nd floor.
As you can see in the time lapse above, I had to adjust the concrete floor around the drain because I didn’t have the drain flashing tool available when I poured the concrete floors.
The drain flashing tool is a simple pre-cut piece of foam board that pre-forms the concrete floor to perfectly fit the actual flashing. If you use the Nobel product, plan ahead and have the flashing tool handy when you pour the concrete floor (the tool comes with the drain flashing). It will save you some time and make the process easier.
Last but not least, here’s a summary video of the installation: