It is not done now but in the past it was. Now cement backer board or green board (same as sheet rock but withstands water better). More at the source.
By the eighties the installation of ceramic tiles directly over sheetrock and plywood was in full swing. I arrived in Houston in 1982 needing work desperately, having just gone broke in the restaurant business in Indiana. I ...
It is not done now but in the past it was. Now cement backer board or green board (same as sheet rock but withstands water better). More at the source.
By the eighties the installation of ceramic tiles directly over sheetrock and plywood was in full swing. I arrived in Houston in 1982 needing work desperately, having just gone broke in the restaurant business in Indiana. I went to work for a tile installation company that was responsible for better than 60 new-housing developments. Each week they would lose a few jobs because they couldn't get to them, but they would be promptly replaced with new developments whose owners needed people to do their work. Needless to say, there was no incentive for quality workmanship. I didn't like it, but as I said, I needed work badly (I was a single dad with three kids), and I knuckled under. So did others.
By that time, "sheetrock showers" were more or less sanctioned by the tile and plumbing industries which have always been driven by manufacturers. I moved away from the practice of installing tiles to sheetrock in wet areas in less than a year and went back on my own doing mud work and setting floor tiles over concrete slabs. I'm embarrassed to say that in later years I probably tore out a few of the sheetrock showers I did and replaced them with well-built mud ones.
By 1991 I had become so disgusted with "sheetrock showers" that I was constantly griping about the practice. My wife, after listening to me complain for several months, finally said, "Why don't you write a book?" Ceramic Tile Setting (McGraw-Hill, 1992) resulted.
Sheetrock in Wet Areas Disavowed
In 1999 the ceramic tile industry finally disavowed the use of sheetrock in wet area tile installations, and in 2005 the folks who edit the International Plumbing Code did the same. At last, sheetrock showers are no longer sanctioned by anyone in the building professions. I must tell you, though, that the standards that govern the tile industry are voluntary. There is no force of law until they are adopted by local authorities in the form of local building codes. It can take a long time for local building authorities to pick up on developments within the building trades.
Good News
But things are looking up, and you should not be disheartened. You certainly should not give up on the ceramic tile industry, because things are on the upswing. Mud work as we once knew it will never return. It's too labor-intensive and also too heavy for modern "light construction" trends. But many newer methods are promising, and some of them have been proven. It is still possible to build showers that are strong and serviceable, and ceramic tile remains the top choice in shower construction bar none. There is nothing as durable and as aesthetically pleasing as ceramic tile.
Among the newer methods of shower building are the cement backer board system and the membrane method. Backer board showers that are properly constructed will last indefinitely if properly maintained. Membrane showers, such as those constructed with Schluter "Kerdi," are completely waterproof and for the most part mold-free.
