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(Sorry for Yet Another Bathroom Thread)
I'm installing a new bathroom and trying to decide what to do to prep for tiling.
The bathroom has some existing normal plasterboard walls and some new unboarded stud walls.
The most important area is the bath: I'm putting in a bath with shower over it. This will run along existing normal plasterboard walls on two sides, the third side (at the shower end) is a new unboarded stud wall.
The walls round the bath we plan to tile to ceiling level. The rest of the room will be tiled half-height (ish). The half-height tiles will be onto one existing normal plasterboard wall, and one new stud wall as yet unboarded.
I can't figure out how best to prep all this.
1. Around the bath I could either use hardibacker (overboard the PB where necessary), or just PB and tanking slurry kit.
2. For the rest of the room, is it worth tanking before tiling for the existing PB?
3. For the new PB outside the bath area is it worth using the green moisture resistant stuff? And again should I tank before tiling?
I don't know how mad to go with waterproofing, in essence. I'm on a budget (as ever) so if I can use cheaper materials that's good, but I don't want to be back doing it again in a couple of years because I skimped at this stage!
Any advice welcome! 😄
In similar circumstances i tanked the whole bathroom. Probably overkill. Also support the bath properly on studwork on all 4 sides and use a proper seal around the bath
Thanks tj. Tanking over normal plasterboard?
Thanks also for the tip in re bath support, I already had that on my TODO list 😊
Are you set on tiles? I much prefer shower wall panel. Much easier to fit. No joins, except the corners so doesn't let any water past. No need to tank behind it. It's also easier to remove for the next bathroom refit. Taking tiles off is a hellish job. Looks better, too, imo, but I get that is subjective.
You shouldn't need any special platerboard. Decent paint on the other walls coupled with good ventilation will suffice.
waterproofing only really needed in wet areas.
also is the existing plasterboard skimmed? if it is if you are using porcilain or natural stone tiles it probably wont take the weight so would possibly need to come of and be reboarded.
tanking paste onto plasaterboard is ok but i would prefer to just use tilebacker boards like marmox etc., much better than hardiebacker.
no need to use green MR plasterboard in a bathroom, obviously no good for wet areas and no benifit in dry areas
Looks better, too, imo, but I get that is subjective.
like you say subjective, i much prefer the look of a decent tiled bathroom.( being a tiler i would say that but it's true)
i will admit that the shower panels can look better than a badly tiled bathroom or one done with really cheap crap tiles.
Mine was tanked over normal plasterboard after skimming - can you tell I like a bit of belt and braces? Most folk think I went OTT but even if the grout fails as it will there is still two barriers before water can get to the boards
Showerboards are IMO horrid and you always end up with joins with ugly plastic joining strips. they don't come in big enough sizes unless you have a tiny bathroom 8x4 is the biggest - my bathroom ceiling is over 8 ft and the walls are over 8 ft long so would need both horizontal and vertical joins
Edit - tiling is one of the few jobs I would get a pro in. I paid a lot to have mine done ( £1000 labour IIRC) but the finish is fabulous. One tile is under a mm out of place. the rest are bob on and no funny little slivers of tile and no odd bits with all holes cut as holes not in from the edge of a tile
Looking to do similar myself in the next few weeks, I'm looking at element board for the shower area instead of standard plasterboard - again, I want to do this fit once, not once every 3 years.
Existing plasterboard is skimmed, I'll double check the weight limits. I don't think we're going for stone so I'm assuming it'll be ok.
I'll be doing the tiling in the fullness of time. I've done a bathroom before and it worked out ok so I'm reasonably comfortable taking it on. The Mrs isn't keen on shower boards so that's that 😂
i would prefer to just use tilebacker boards like marmox etc., much better than hardiebacker.
What makes marmox better than hariebacker? I'd seen hardiebacker recommended elsewhere and assumed that was the one to go for.
Sounds similar to my bathroom. Bath with a plumbed in shower at the end. I build the stud wall and plaster boarded it. Then just tiled on top, from the bath up to the floor, on the long and short side.
Been like that for 10 plus years, although I did regrout about 5 years ago with a grey grout.
No leaks identified to date.
My theory is that the water runs down the tiles, so even if the grout is slightly porus, there is no water sitting on it so should be fine.
my bathroom was originally tile on plasterboard. Grout will always fail and did so in this case. When I stripped it the plasterboard was soaked and there was some wet rot. NOt visible until I took the tiles off.
Aye, to be fair, the current bathrooms (I am fairly sure) are original to the house when it was built in the mid 1990s, and the tiling is all just straight onto plasterboard, onto a coat of Standard Issue Shoebox House Magnolia no less.
When we moved in one bathroom was in a fair state of disrepair due to water ingress, which I fixed up as best I could. But not totally catastrophic for something like 20 years of use(!).
I redid mine over Easter (not exactly finished but functioning!).
I went for some panels to save time and I couldn’t face too much tiling. Tongue and groove type fitting so not much in the way of a visible join, bar the internal bend. Pretty happy with my decision.
It was previously all tiled and the plaster was all completely wrecked. I ended up taking all four walls back to brickwork and starting again. It’s been hard work.
What was the question again😂
I think you can buy waterproof board to fix the tiles onto - tilebacker or suchlike. That must be better than plasterboard. It's the steam that causes more problems than the water so I would go floor to ceiling on waterproofing. Also, the grout is not 100% waterproof so again, a good backing is best.
Existing plasterboard is skimmed, I’ll double check the weight limits. I don’t think we’re going for stone so I’m assuming it’ll be ok.
most porcilain is also to heavy for a skimmed wall, may not have this exactly right but limit for a skimmed wall is about 22kg a sqm, thats inculding tile, adhesive and grout.
marmox is fully waterproof, lighter and much easier to cut and fix with the washers. also has insulation properties.
labour time saved in the install makes up for the added cost of marmox and washers.
also hardibacker isn't fully waterproof, only water resistant.
the boards i use are called delta boards, fit them then tape and seal the joints/over fixings and its fully waterproof.
I used cement based boards and then tanked n taped the corner and bottom of the shower enclosure, then tiles on with waterproof adhesive and waterproof grout.
Bal ct4 from memory
Used 10mm Thermopanel in the walk in shower. Fixed to stud frame with washers then taped. Even in winter the tiles there don't get cold. The silica dust is nasty when you cut it.
The tape came from the Everbuild Aquaseal Tanking Kit which got used around the bath. Painted several coats of the tanking membrane onto old bare plaster and tiled directly on top after a few weeks curing. 75% of it was wasted.
I still don't know why people tile in areas that don't get wet. I'll use panels in my next bathroom.
I still don’t know why people tile in areas that don’t get wet
Having stripped two rooms of excessive tiles, then making good I'm now pretty sure they do it to piss off the next home owner.
I still don’t know why people tile in areas that don’t get wet
because for me (and obviously plenty of other people) a fully tiled bathroom looks better.
Mastic bath in place, then tile, then pay a mastic man to do the whole bathroom. Bath then gets a double mastic treatment - better than a seal strip imo.