Thank you for your review. It is unfortunate that you had issues installing your DreamLine base. DreamLine does recommend that our products be installed by a professional. Our Customer Support technicians are on hand to answer questions. With products such as our bases, our technicians all have an instruction sheet available that states that the mixture should be mixed to a pudding-like consistency, and applied 3/4" thick around the perimeter of the standing area and tapering down to 3/8" around the drain. Our technicians do not recommend quantity of bags of mortar, however, as that depends on the size of your base and how thick you mix your mortar. It sounds as if you were able to install the base successfully. We are confident that you will enjoy it for years to come. Again, we thank you for your purchase and your review.