Building Wetrooms
Preparing the Wet Room
Firstly clear the room that you are going to be installing/building the wet rooms area into, simple reason when it’s clear it’s easy to measure and identify exactly what you want to do.
Floor Preparation
Tiling directly on to floor boards is a no no, you need a solid flat fixed surface to ensure that there is no movement under the tiles, we would recommend using a tile backer board, by installing tile backer board it also gives a waterproof area to butt up to your wet room area and is super quick to install, you will also gain insulated properties within the room. Utilising a decoupling membrane can also be very useful and can stop movement which in turn stop tiles from coming up and grout cracking.
Wall Preparation
We would always recommend removing any plaster board within the wet rooms area, primarily because it’s porous. Again tile backer board can be used on stud wall and also brick walls, utilising tile backer board will not only give you waterproof walls once tanked, but also increase the insulation properties of the room, especially if you are installing on to an outside wall. You can utilise different thicknesses of backer board which will give you difference thermal properties. Install these board is very simple you either utilise Disc’s dowels which are drilled and then hammered in to concrete walls or Washers and screw them to the stud work, both options spread the load of the fixing.
Choosing which wet rooms tray should be installed
Most wetroom trays on the market are a foam based core with reinforced meshing on the surface, all foam decks can be installed on both concrete floor and timber floors, however on timber floors under boarding support is required, in most installation installers want a flush finish with the floor boards and tile backer boards so noggins will be required on the joists and ply to be dropped down on these to give flush support with the tray. Foam core wet rooms can be installed directly in the screed or concrete floors as they are fully supported. Alternatively if you don’t want to under board you wet room areas you can utilise a GRP Deck (Glass Reinforced Plastic) these decks come with pre formed falls and are incredibly strong and do not require under boarding.
How do you waterproof your DIY wet room area.
There are multiple tanking systems on the market, we prefer the gum based products as they are easy to install for any DIY Wet room installer, However the others also have other benefits, Main advantage of this kit is it’s easy to paint on and relatively quick drying time. BSA bitumen membrane comes in rolls of 1000mm wide but 5m long to 10m long, it’s 2mm and has self-adhesive backing that is peeled off when installing. A jointing tape is also utilised to fully waterproof the joints. Main benefit is you can tile straight away once installed as there is no drying time. Homelux waterproof matting is a fabric membrane which is applied using tiling adhesive on the wall and is then troweled on to bed it into the adhesive. All the above are 100% waterproof, if installed correctly!
Comments (2)
Hi
I am taking out the bathroom in a Static caravan and looking to use the above method to replace the bathroom. Have you any experience of installing in a caravan?
regards
Hi, We don’t have any experience per-say, however this is something that has been requested before, we would recommend using a Tough-X Wetroom shower tray which is solid, as long as the area is supported and is used with high quality adhesive you should be fine, For the wetroom flooring, We would not recommend using Tiles, but a vinyl flooring similar to Grant Westfield WetFlor.