Said It Here

Do I need a waterproof membrane under tile or a toilet flange?

Waterproof membranes prevent trapped moisture and water accumulation beneath cement board, tile, and toilet flanges. Without proper waterproofing, underlying layers can become wet, loose, or crack and shift over time.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Relying on conflicting advice from different sources or installing cement board and tile without extra liquid waterproofing.
  2. 2
    pulling out the tiles and considering patching or thinsetting over the loose membrane

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

Should I add a waterproof membrane liquid (like Aqua defense) over plywood?source ↗

Ioiwin · r/HomeMaintenance · 1 upvotes

We've been noticing that a section of the shower floor was cracking and moving a bit.source ↗

This layer is wet, so it shows water is accumulating theresource ↗

The orange layer is loosesource ↗

ok_pkg · r/HomeMaintenance · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised