Wetroom kits and Tiles

andyhop

Plasterboard and tanking is the way to go

Wedi board in 12mm for a 2.5x0.6 sheet is approx £24+vat

Plasterboard in 2.4x1.2m £4.50+vat

Tanking membrane for a 5m roll 1m width £31+vat

Adhesive for membrane 20kg £20 for Keraquick

Do the maths!

Drop me a PM with your email addy and i should be able to send you a few images of a wetroom in progress

twodoctors wrote: »

Thanks Andy.

He's going to buy all the stuff and give me the invoice. I guess what I didn't buy he will sort out. We know you can't tile onto chipboard. This is exactly what the previous owner did (and he's a builder. No wonder according to my neighbours he changed the name of his company every few years!). I'm guessing he didn't waterproof the walls with membrane either, which is why everything is leaking. I asked about special board for walls as I suspect everything will fall apart as soon as my plumber start ripping the room out, except for the floor tiles, which is stuck onto the floorboard. But then he didn't use flexible adhesive and probably didn't use too much of anything either!

I would have left the plasterboard part to him, but reading about these waterproof board, I did wonder whether I should splash out a bit for "potential long term benefit", whatever that may be...

To be honest I am trying to save cost as well, so I am buying the wetroom stuff as other plumbers have quoted a fair bit for the stuff. A "kit" cost between 250-350, but now I realise the kit doesn't come with everything I need.

I'll tank at least half the bathroom (1.7x2.4m), full height on the wetroom side (left) and up to the window sill on the basin/toilet side (right)...

Adrian

PS you sure you don't want a 2-week "holiday" in sunny Nottingham? :-p

twodoctors

Andy, thanks a lot. You've been extremely helpful.

Is tile backer board the same as these marmox and wendi board?

I'll pm you.

Adrian

ds1980

phone the guy at tuff 2, very helpful and knowledgable. Built wetroom/utility/toilet about 1 year ago myself no experience just capable diy'er. I think it's a bit of a misconception that it is a difficult job it's just the problems could be more severe if you get it wrong. just do as you're doing, research research research, i got 5 different answers to every question i asked and in the end had to go with what i thought best. Work through solutions logically. Havent read all thread but the other guy seems to know a lot more than me but email if you like as i remember having all your questions and more when i did mine

twodoctors

Thanks ds1980. I think I've settled with Marmox showerston based on price. I was going to leave it all to the plumber and get the best stuff at my price bracket. Researching it opens up lots of options in terms of how many ways can be done. On the one hand this needs to be economical, but I shouldn't skimp on quality for the long run either. Most wetroom kit don't come with membrane, only tanking solution, which seemed inferior to me. Some advertise tile backing board as alternative but apparently they are expensive. A bit confused to be honest, especially when everyone tells you something slightly different, I guess to make a sale. I only found out yesterday about not using tiles smaller than 50*50 on the cheaper boards, and I was contemplating getting mosaic for the floor!

Adrian

ds1980

Tell me about it! I didn't use any sheet membrane for the walls just the floor but we're downstairs on a concrete floor if you're upstairs then that is a definite i'd say. I'd always overdo it as well ( if 3 coats required i might put on 4-5 etc). Its costs a whole lot more to fix once it's finished for the sake of £50-£100.

I used travertine 15x15 on my floors which was a massive no no apparently. It cost about £2 a sq m and i'm usually one for spending a bit more but it looked nice and suited my needs and was going to cost over £1000 less than what the wife wanted. Anyway a year on the first thing people mention is the floor and i havent had one problem with it. Im certainly not advocating just reiterating a point. I have the "cheap" UFH boards beneath my tiles so not sure where that comes from. I have the lightweight tile boards on some of the walls and my walls tiles arent 50x50 but i dont know much about that so stick to what you think best

gl with it

twodoctors

Spoke to my plumber again. He said tanking with membrane is the way forward. Spoke to my "local" tile merchant who also sells tanking material. Schluter systems, a name that came up before when I googled the subject. Quoted (Ditra) £8 per m2 + VAT for the floor stuff. The tanking solution is £30 a tub, apparently with tape and stuff which I found hard to believe, as the tape alone usually cost about £40. It's a Dunlop branded one. Is this good enough? The guy I spoke to was a boy who isn't that well informed yet. The guy I dealt with before who is more clued up was away today. Does anyone have any experience with Schluter-Ditra and Schluter-Kerdi? Apparently I can just tile on top with Schluter-Ditra, and use Kerdi for the wall. I'm sure there are loads of equivalent stuff around.

My plumber said just tank the floor. He said tanking the wall is probably a bit of an overkill. I think I will still ask him to tank certainly the wet room area all the way to the ceiling, which in theory shouldn't take that much more time. As I said before he's only charging for labour and invoicing me for material. Probably in my interest to make his life easier...

Thanks again for your help Andyhop and ds1980!

Adrian

andyhop

twodoctors wrote: »

Spoke to my plumber again. He said tanking with membrane is the way forward. Spoke to my "local" tile merchant who also sells tanking material. Schluter systems, a name that came up before when I googled the subject. Quoted (Ditra) £8 per m2 + VAT for the floor stuff. The tanking solution is £30 a tub, apparently with tape and stuff which I found hard to believe, as the tape alone usually cost about £40. It's a Dunlop branded one. Is this good enough? The guy I spoke to was a boy who isn't that well informed yet. The guy I dealt with before who is more clued up was away today. Does anyone have any experience with Schluter-Ditra and Schluter-Kerdi? Apparently I can just tile on top with Schluter-Ditra, and use Kerdi for the wall. I'm sure there are loads of equivalent stuff around.

My plumber said just tank the floor. He said tanking the wall is probably a bit of an overkill. I think I will still ask him to tank certainly the wet room area all the way to the ceiling, which in theory shouldn't take that much more time. As I said before he's only charging for labour and invoicing me for material. Probably in my interest to make his life easier...

Thanks again for your help Andyhop and ds1980!

Adrian

Your plumber should be sacked before he even starts

ALL WET AREAS MUST BE TANKED

NO GROUT OR ADHESIVE IS FULLY WATERPROOF AND WILL ABSORB WATER AND EVENTUALLY DAMAGE THE SUBSTRATE. THE TERM WATER PROOF ON THE TUN MEANS THAT IT WILL NOT BREAK DOWN UNDER WATER!

Paint on tanking kits require uniform coverage, around 8hrs between coats and the ones i have seen or used previously sometime peal , When combing the wall you can sometimes nick the rubber coating

Why are you so against using the homelux stuff? There is nothing better for the price , same with the AKW Tuff2 formers.

Use this items and your wetroom will not fail

twodoctors

Thanks Andy.

I agree which is why I'll get the whole wetroom area fully lined with membrane, and half line the rest of the bathroom. This is one of the reason why I am looking around myself as well so I know what needs to be done.

Tuff2 and homelux seemed to be more expensive than Showerstone and Schluter. What I found is certainly an upgrade from what I was going to buy originally. I take your point about Tuff2 and Homelux but Showerstone and Schluter appears to be an alternative rather than a step down. Again, this is based on what I've read on the net.

So can I just clarify that I with a membrane, my floor will be floorboard-adhesive-membrane-adhesive-tile, and I don't need a ply layer which a few of the plumbers have mentioned when they quote me? For the wall it will be plasterboard-adhesive-membrane-adhesive-tile as well? And tapes for the joints? Would you tile all the way up to the ceiling in the non-wetroom area as well?

Thanks Andy.

Adrian

andyhop

You still need ply

You can not fit Ditra mat over floorboards and expect to tile. Thats not what its designed for. It is a decoupling membrane for lateral stress along the floor, designed for soft stones etc

twodoctors

Thanks Andy. So it will still be floorboard-marine ply-adhesive-membrane-adhesive-tile? Is this not overboarding then? So the bit I don't understand is why use the more expensive stuff like ditra/homelux-floor for floors and not Kerdi/homelux-wall if you can't tile directly on top? I haven't done tiling before so I have absolutely no idea.

Thanks.

Adrian (confused!)