Keystone MAXX

We ordered this unit through Home Depot and it was delivered to our home. Its final destination would be the cottage and wouldn’t be undertaken until the season was over - which is now, this fall. The shine fell off the brass ball when upon opening I noticed a 1/4” chip on the front apron of the base. Ok, well not great, but I will live with that. I built my enclosure area as per the instructions (which as I said were very concise). No issues. I placed my base in, and fastened after ensuring all was level and square. I then placed the the rear upper part of the enclosure onto the base previously applying silicone as directed (note- that video and instructions did not include is that it is better to lightly sand areas to be siliconed for best adhesion). I also found that after marking the base with a pencil in order to give me a reference for applying the silicone really didn’t help (as I found out when I disassembled the back and base pieces from each other).

The “patented alignment pins” that I was impressed with aligning the back and the base fell well short of the mark when it came time to attach the first of the two side panels. Terrible doesn't describe the poor workmanship I found. The panels were so wonky (so much for their claims of wood reinforcement) that I had to mark off and redrill the holes in order to get them to line up. Even then, the fits was poor.

I am going to (next weekend) rip some 3/4 ext grade plywood into backer strips and glue and clamp with PL Premium to the backside of the panels giving me a new surface into which I can create new holes for the pins to go into. This should be part of the design from the get go. Wow! As it is, this 1/8” strip of fiberglass with a gel coat finish offers up a hole oftentimes less than 1/8” from the edge. It goes with out saying that with numerous fitting attempts this broke. Sigh! Anyway, I’m going to call Maax tomorrow, Monday, as there wasn’t anyone there today. I’m also going to give Home Depot a shout. I paid over $1400 for this junk that I will have to make work (and I will) but I sincerely hope one of these companies or perhaps both look after my issue in one form or another. Shame on you MAAX!

Now in July of 2022 the same area has 3 problem sites (one hole the size of a BB, a cracked spot and another site where the finish is wearing off). Maax states the warranty ended in 2021 and the repair work warranty was only for 1 year. This is obviously a defect in the product itself, a bathtub should not develop holes after 3 years of use and now more holes after 6 years of use. I reported the problem while under warranty and the “patch” fixed it enough to get through the warranty but a bathtub should last well over 5 or 6 years.

I have spoken to a service rep 4 times and am waiting for a call from a supervisor and the representative would only give me a first name for the supervisor and said there is no extension for the supervisor. I am hopeful that maax will assist with this issue. I have seen that others have had problems with cracks and holes in their units as well and feel that the problem was not fully investigated initially. No one removed the drain at the time of the initial repair to look for defects or further damage, the holes are all at the area around the drain. The serial number for the tub unit is 00006170788 if this helps.

To get the base and top piece to look remotely correct, we wound up having the top be out from the wall about an inch. We had to shim it up to make it work. Now I have to add extra layers to make my back wall in my bathroom thicker to help fill the gap. We're wondering if we got factory seconds. This crap is ridiculous. From now on, we're just gonna stick with one piece showers. It would have been easier to make a hole through our wall and put a one piece than install this 4 piece shower. It took us hours, about 7 or 8 just to get it to look halfway decent. NEVER AGAIN!!!!

Here’s the punchline: The project turned out to be NOT fast, NOT easy, and NOT particularly low cost, though we probably did complete at about 25% lower product cost than a traditional tile shower installation. There was no savings on time - we likely spent more time than on a traditional shower install. We would NOT recommend this product except in very specific circumstances. Our experience with a MAAX UTile installation was quite frustrating, though we eventually completed the project, but we are not confident in long-term performance of the system. Now, our story and the gory details:

DELIVERY AND QUALITY

Product delivery was difficult. We ordered through Menards, with a 6 week delivery promise. The order was delayed by an additional 6 weeks (to 12 weeks). The Menards team helped, providing an in-stock, same model shower base ahead of the delivery, to keep our overall basement renovation job moving. When the order did arrive, a wall was missing (a MAAX delivery error). Menards worked diligently to expedite the missing piece. When the last wall arrived (an additional 2+ weeks delay), we discovered one wall had a surface crack and each wall had some cosmetic defect. MAAX tech support offered good support in this moment: they quickly shipped a replacement for the cracked wall (we worked around the other cosmetic issues). Quickly = add another week of delay. Total delivery time: 15 weeks.

Unfortunately, quality was challenging beyond the walls. The Olympia model base is built by gluing a molded plastic floor to a styrofoam under-layer. The system SQUEAKED when stepped on. We had to evaluate if this was caused by a non-level floor issue (no), related to movement before the system was permanently secured (no), or something else. We determined the problem was between the surface and styrofoam layers, where the two surfaces rubbed together. The layers were not glued together well, or may just be a bad design: weight on the base’s surface creates friction between the layers which creates squeaking. With some research, we resolved this by pouring real talcum powder in the poorly glued gap between the layers, completely around the base edge - no more squeaking! We hope this will be a lasting fix.

INSTALLATION

MAAX indicates that the uTile system should be installed within an effectively perfect space - level and plumb in all (specific) dimensions except floor-to-ceiling height. Two “buts”: the instructions are not perfectly clear on how the pieces must install relative to the space, and the actual product quality does not match the demand for space construction quality. This created a cascade of problems for us.

Shower base location - We placed the shower base prior to the walls arriving, including setting the drain pipe location. We followed the specific instructions for a uTile installation (which are different to the shower base’s standard instructions). These say, absolutely, “Install the base pushing it completely against the studs” (page 7, step 2). NOT true, as we only found out later, after the plumbing was set. Setting the back of the shower base completely against the studs creates a later problem with alignment of the uTile shower walls with the front edge of the shower base.

We were completely screwed on this one, since we installed before testing fitting everything (due to delivery delays). We ended up with about a 1/4” overhang of wall beyond the edge of the shower pan. It doesn’t look terrible, but it is not right. You WILL need to shim the shower pan off the back wall by about 1/4” to get perfect alignment on the front edges. This is a significant error in the install instructions.

Installing the walls - As we placed the walls, in our nearly-perfect opening, we encountered odd panel alignment issues. We noted different-sized gaps on the back wall between the top and bottom of both the right and left sides of the wall; in testing fitting all the wall panels, this created an exaggerated gap in both corners where wall panels met, and seemed to pull the front edge of the side walls away from the studs. We checked our level and plumb on all walls, they were good.

We determined the back wall was slightly warped in the middle, by about 1/4”, from the center to the bottom of the wall. With no way to attach the center and bottom of the wall to the studs behind, we resolved this, as best we could, by attaching the back wall to the side studs about 6” from the bottom of the studs on both sides of the panel - an action definitely not in the instructions, which do not call for any screws-to-studs on the sides of the back wall. This resolved the warping problem enough that the corner gaps mostly closed up, and the side walls mostly squared up and touching their framing studs. We proceeding to “permanently” install the walls, and sealed up the corners.

Installing the corner shelves - This task seemed simple, but was in fact a challenge. The walls must be completely square for the shelves to fit relative to the shelf mounting template. We used the template. I expected there would be some allowance for adjustment in the alignment of the shelves. I was wrong - no play here at all. With slightly imperfect wall square, the screw openings to attach the shelves to the shelf mounts were off by 1/16” and could not be adjusted, so would not install. The mounts were already in, so I had to make the shelves work! I dealt with this by cutting off the bottom of one of the two screw sleeve fittings for each shelf, and tossed the related screw liners, creating the play we needed to fit the shelves. My best guess is this was ultimately related to the slight lack of square caused by the warped back panel; there should be more tolerance in the shelf’s design.

With the base, walls, and shelves installed - and if everything had arrived on time, without defects - I might say that UP TO THIS POINT, a uTile install was easier than a traditional tile shower install. After this point in the install, however, I CANNOT say this. Why? The instructions are silent on how adjacent surfaces should attach/align to the “edges” of the shower - which becomes a time consuming, ridiculous “finishing” challenge with the product.

In our case, uTile installation left about a 3” gap between the (low) ceiling and the top of the uTile panel, and wall finishing was needed along the front edges of the uTile panels. The panels themselves have a 1/8” thick, 1” wide “lip” that is used for securing the panel to studs. The finished panel surface is raised a little more than 1/2” (maybe 9/16”?) above this surface. Moisture-resistant drywall or some other water-resistant material needs to be wrapped over the lip, and you must decide how much reveal of the (finished) side edge of the raised panel you want to see. To create a level-with or parallel surface to the wall panel face, you must install the material by first shimming behind the material to deal with the thickness of the panel’s lip, and then attaching the material to the nearby wall structure in a way that leaves a clean finishing line with the wall panel. Simply put, this work is a total pain in the **.

In our case, with a 48x32 shower, the total amount of drywall to install was probably less than 4 square feet, but was spread along 24 linear feet, and had 48+ linear feet of related edge-finishing bead, outside corner bead, inside corner bead, etc. The drywall work, to make this all look good, took 2 additional days, including drying time for mud. THIS TOTALLY WIPED OUT ANY INSTALLATION TIME VALUE.

Relatively, the shower door went up quickly, but even this was a bit difficult with the uTile panels. In the case of uTile, you must attach the shower door framing to the uTile panels using screws and plastic expansion plugs, because there is an air gap between the back of the uTile panel and the studs behind. You cannot just use a longer screw to get to the stud and torque it down, or you risk cracking or breaking the uTile panel. We drilled the holes for the plugs to the MAAX spec, but these turned out to be too large to keep the MAAX-supplied plugs from turning in the relatively thin panels as screws were installed. So, we visited Menards one more time to find plugs that would work better and hold firmly in the MAAX-specified holes. This is an issue with uTile design - more thickness at these locations on the panel would prevent this kind of issue and allow for proper attachment through to the studs.

THE WRAP UP

Now that it is all finished, it looks “ok”, but I wish we had simply installed a traditional tiled shower without all the hassles associated with uTile as a system. We have concerns about the system’s rather complete reliance on the integrity of the large number of silicone seals at every panel edge for water protection.

- Overall, I cannot recommend this system to a DIY’er who could just as easily install a traditional tile shower system.