Aquapanels or tiles?

JuzaMum

I'm in the planning stages of a new small bathroom. I have panels in my shower room and they have blown on the joins but the fitter did not know what they were doing. The house has 'character' (not all wall are straight or flat!). I am unsure what to go for. What to others think. Have you panels and love them or regret it. How do they work around windows? Are tiles better is a 'characterful' house? Thanks

DRP

Last 3 new bathrooms I’ve used panels. I think they’re great. Easy to clean, no grout.

Doozergirl

They definitely don't have any character.  

Gers

My place has panels because the ancient doesn't have any straight walls, they are both lovely and easy to clean. All the latest trendy bathroom tiles make me shudder. Huge, brown or grey with pretend marbling are not to my taste. 

Picture from 2014 when the place was being renovated. 

ashe

My walls aren't straight but a good builder or installer should t struggle too much with that as they can use a backing board to fix them to giving a flush surface. 

It's a cost thing I think, pvc panels to me feel cheap but can look good. Tiles will be expensive but also look and feel good 

the two houses we have had that had panels were hiding a multitude of evils behind the panels 

JuzaMum

Thanks for the responses. How to panels look around a window. How do all the edgy bits work?

itsanne

We used panels in the shower in both bathroom and ensuite, but tiles outside the showers. Tile trim would work at windows and corners if you wanted to use only panels, though I'm not sure I'd do that. By far the best selection we found was from rearo.co.uk (though that was a number of years ago). We did it ourselves so used their lightweight panels - ten years on they look like new.

DRP

ashe said:

My walls aren't straight but a good builder or installer should t struggle too much with that as they can use a backing board to fix them to giving a flush surface. 

It's a cost thing I think, pvc panels to me feel cheap but can look good. Tiles will be expensive but also look and feel good 

the two houses we have had that had panels were hiding a multitude of evils behind the panels 

I don’t know what pvc panels are, but the shower panels I have used are solid and not cheap looking or feeling at all. They’re actually not cheap , so that stands to reason

Murmansk

I've come across a number of cases where the shower riser has come loose because it was screwed to a plastic shower panel as they don't really give a very firm foundation to which to attach something. 

I'd suggest gluing a piece of plywood on the back of the panel behind where the riser will go on installation to give a nice firm surface to screw into