Tiling bathroom ready for shower unit

jasonc_2

I'm a bit of a novice to all this so please bear with me.
I'm all ready to tile the walls around the bath in preperation for an electric shower unit. (there has been no shower at all up until now).
What I want to know is should I drill the holes in the wall for the water pipe and electric cable ect now before I tile the whole wall or leave an area untiled til i've got my shower sorted out or something else?

I haven't actually bought a shower yet so don't know where pipes and fittings would lie.

Please help as to what would be my best course of action.

Thanks in advance.

Debt_Free_Chick

jasonc wrote:

I haven't actually bought a shower yet so don't know where pipes and fittings would lie.

I think this is your first problem. You need to be sure which pipes/cables need to go where, in order to connect with the shower. I very much doubt that any of your pipes/cables are anywhere near where they need to be, in order to connect with the shower unit. If your water pipes simply go to the taps on the bath, then they are likely to need to go further up the wall, to connect with the shower head. Ditto, the electricity cable ... and you may need this to be on a separate ring or to be isolated.

I would be very surprised if you don't need to drill or chisel out channels in the existing wall to accommodate the new pipes. That should be done before you even think about tiling. You need to start with the end result and then work backwards. You should seriously think about getting an electrician to do or supervise the electrical work.

Regards

Mr_Grumpy_7

jasonc wrote:

I'm all ready to tile the walls around the bath in preperation for an electric shower unit. (there has been no shower at all up until now).

As this is a new installation, not a like for like swap, it comes under Part P of the building regs. Therefore be sure you get the relevant certificate once the shower has been installed.

Good luck with the tiling!

wonka

We've just had bathroom fitters in this week, who've done a superb job, so I can probably answer this.

They dug channels in the wall, dropped a pipe and a cable down from the loft, then filled the channels in, leaving the pipe and cable exposed at certain points in the wall. The tiler then tiled around the holes by initially making holes in the tiles.

Of course they knew where to locate the pipe/cable since we already knew what shower was being installed. I can't believe you're considering doing this work BEFORE buying the shower unit, you're heading for a DIY disaster.