Shower Door Sizing?

[AZRedhawk44]

I'm re-tiling my shower in my master bath and I'm at a bit of an impasse when it comes to choosing a door.

Without tile, my entry into the 5-sided shower enclosure is 24" wide.  But shower doors are sized for the tiled entry.

The tiles I have chosen are 1/4" thick.  What is the typical thickness of the mortar bed behind tile, when compressed by a tile leveling system?

My goal is to do any necessary drilling on the tiles for mounting door hinges while the mortar is still wet and my tile saw is still set up.  I don't want to wind up cracking a tile and having to remove it, re-prep the underlying surface again, and fiddle with mortar thickness to get a level tile with the others.  Easier to remove and replace a cracked tile while the mortar is wet.  As such I can't wait to order a door after I know the width of the tiled entry, because the mortar will be dry.

I'm aware of adjustable width doors, but those all come with metal trim around the door.  We don't want metal trim around the glass, we just want bare glass.  Fitment becomes much more critical with that design.

I've found a door that is 23" wide, and comes with shims that allow it to fit up to 23 1/4" wide with the shims installed.  I think that'll work, I figure the mortar will probably end up being 1/8 to 3/16 thick on top of the 1/4" of the tile, giving me a reduced width somewhere between 23 1/8" to 23 1/4".  But I'd love some input from others with experience on this.

[Nick1911]

I've taken to using diamond grit hole saws for this kind of work.  Being essentially an abrasive process, I haven't had any issues breaking tiles - the cutting pressure is fairly low.  Start them at an angle, slowly, to establish a hole, and keep it wet with a spray bottle.

https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Diamond-Max-Hole-Saws

[JTHunter]

In watching many episodes of "This Old House", they usually use a notched trowel with a 1/8" notch on it.  Unlike concrete blocks or bricks, they don't "back butter" the tiles and the notches allow the mortar bed to spread and fill the gaps without coming up between the tiles.
Are you planning on using a sanded grout or an unsanded grout to fill the spaces between the tiles?  Be careful as the sanded grout can scratch the tiles when you do your clean-up later.
Or do you plan on using a silicone sealant between the tiles after the mortar underneath is fully cured?

[AZRedhawk44]

Most instructional videos and articles I've come across favor the back butter approach, and a 3/16 or 1/4 notched trowel on the wall.  Too little mortar and tiles can pop off easily.  My tile substrate maker (Kerdi) specifically recommends a 3/16 x 1/4 v-notch trowel in some parts of their literature, but they have several application videos on Youtube where their people have additional recommendations that pertain more to tile coverage and adherence percentages, and to increase trowel size to get better coverage and adherence.  But back-buttering is important to ensure that even off-plane tiles with a little bit of bow or arch to them adhere fully to their substrate.  I've got 3 different trowel sizes and if for some reason they don't seem right when I start in on the tile, I'll go out and get one more.

Basically, thicker mortar allows for uneven-ness in your wall to not show through the laid tile.  I have places where my wall anchors for my kerdi board bow it inwards a bit, and I'll have to use thicker mortar there than other places, but that gets averaged out when applying mortar to the wall in the first place.  There just has to be enough, without being too much.

As for mortar pouring out between tile, that's what a margin trowel and a wet sponge is for.

Was loosely intending on sanded grout for the floor.  Floor is a riverstone pattern.  Walls are going to be 12x24 porcelain.  Haven't really thought about grout for the walls yet, other than I favor smaller grout lines for the porcelain.

I do have a proprietary Schluter caulk/sealant intended for use where the tile meets the floor, and the corner seams of the tile.  That will certainly be used to close all the seams of the "box" of the shower, rather than grout in those channels.  I could probably just use that same sealant for all the seams of the porcelain tile rather than grout.  I don't really know what it looks like so I may hold off on that decision until I've tile the walls and applied the sealant to the box seams.

Grout really hasn't hit my research radar much yet.

[cordex]

I can’t help on dimensional tiling, but I wouldn’t count on thick mortar to hide an uneven wall unless you even it with straight mortar before setting the tile.

[Kingcreek]

Can you test mount a single tile and measure your thickness?
You could even pull it and clean it up before hard set if you don’t want to sacrifice one.
I’ve done porcelain, ceramic, and marble. I always thought layout was the hardest part and everything after that is easy.

[AZRedhawk44]

Can you test mount a single tile and measure your thickness?
You could even pull it and clean it up before hard set if you don’t want to sacrifice one.
I’ve done porcelain, ceramic, and marble. I always thought layout was the hardest part and everything after that is easy.

Yeah that came to mind.  I'd have to mix a bag of mortar and let it go to waste is the only drawback.

[cordex]

Yeah that came to mind.  I'd have to mix a bag of mortar and let it go to waste is the only drawback.

Why couldn't you just mix a small batch?

[AZRedhawk44]

Not really sure how to do so.

Comes in a 50# bag, I have to add 2 gallons of water to it.  I can measure water just fine.  Don't have a scale in the house to measure 12.5 pounds or something like that.

I don't have enough experience with mortar, knowing the right consistency, to tell if I'm getting it too wet or too dry for ~1/4 of a bag mixed.

[AZRedhawk44]

I think what I'll do is get the 23" door, and apply my tile edge trim with the inner and outer walls of the shower... it will be 23" from the left piece of edge trim to the right piece of edge trim.  This way the tile sections that are part of the doorway, and through which I have to drill to mount the hinges, have a height indication for the thickness of the mortar needed.

Or maybe tile leveling systems have different thicknesses of backer pieces, and I'll make sure I have appropriate thickness for the leveling backer to ensure my doorway shrinks from 24 to 23 inches.

[RocketMan]

Not really sure how to do so.

Comes in a 50# bag, I have to add 2 gallons of water to it.  I can measure water just fine.  Don't have a scale in the house to measure 12.5 pounds or something like that.

I don't have enough experience with mortar, knowing the right consistency, to tell if I'm getting it too wet or too dry for ~1/4 of a bag mixed.

There should be lots of videos on YouTube showing how to mix mortar to the right consistency.  Once you have that figured out, mixing a small batch just the right size for a tile or three should be easy.

[Kingcreek]

Mix some to the consistency of thin creamy peanut butter.