Bathroom Remodel advise please

[Ben Graves]

I've been looking to remodel my bathroom for a while now. I have contractors I use on my investment properties. I'm stubborn and a little adventurous and I hate hiring contractors to work on MY house. I have some construction experience but not a ton. I am thinking of tackling my bathroom remodel myself and using a Wedi shower system. Has anyone has any experience installing one of these. I feel like it can't possibly be as easy as it seems in the videos. I think I'm meticulous enough to get the tile right as long as it's got a solid base to go over. Any input on Wedi, or tile, or anything really would be appreciated. Thanks!  

[Jon Holdman]

Any sort of "system" is totally unnecessary.  I used a "tile redi" base when I did a shower for a bathroom remodel and then ended up (unexpectedly) re-doing another shower and did it the traditional way.  The tile redi base was a complete waste of money and gave a poor result.  You just do not need to do anything fancy.  Use 1/2" concrete backer board on the walls. For the base, do the traditional sloped mortar base. Use a topical water proofing.  Schluter makes a series of "Kerdi drains" that work really well:  

https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/Shower-...

I was afraid the traditional techniques were difficult to do when I chose that useless tile redi system.  Turns out they're not and they will give you a better result.

I found this guy's site to be usedful:  http://floorelf.com/

Now, all that said, setting tile is not easy.   It requires care and patience and the work is just laborious, especially steps like mixing mortar and grouting.