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I'm fitting a new shower and tray prior to tiling the bathroom; the shower area has walls on 3 sides.

The old tiling started leaking and ruined the existing plaster board so I have replaced this with aqua panel on all sides of the shower. I'm now in the process of using the Dunlop waterproofing kit for extra peace of mind.

The trouble is the shower area is about 16mm larger than it should be so I've got a gap down either side of the shower tray.

This is not a problem for tiling as it will cover the gap, but when applying the tape to the joints from the waterproofing kit I need to overlap the wall joint to the shower tray. Should I fill the gap in down the side of the tray first, maybe using silicon? I'm not sure how strong the tape will be once sealed and want to avoid the tape being pierced during tiling where it has no support underneath.

The other alternative I've considered is one of the many shower seals that could be used to bridge the gap but I’d prefer to avoid this route if possible.

One other question regarding the tiling. I'm going be tiling over the joints between the new aquapanel and existing plaster board (outside of the shower area) but as the plasterboard has already been skimmed it is a couple of mm thicker than the aquapanel. Will this slight step cause a problem when tiling? Just trying to avoid having to use excessive amounts of adhesive with tiles in shower area to line up with those outside of it.

Thanks for your help,

Cheers.
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You should have got a shower tray with upstands!!

backfill the gap with silicone then do the tanking.

The difference between outside and inside of shower area will be taken up with the adhesive bed.

depending on tile size, will determine what adhesive to use and also the size of notched trowel to apply it with. personally, a cement adhesive is far better to use in shower area than a readymixed tubbed one.