Bathroom advice

[Maggi]

Hello

Please bear with me and my multiple questions! Thanks in advance to anybody who offers advice.

We've bought 600 x 300 porcelain tiles for our bathroom. They are for the floor and walls. They are 9mm thick and weigh around 22kg per square metre. From this excellent forum I've learnt that they can't be used on skimmed plastered walls so we're going to use something else.

On the left hand wall (which has the bathroom door in it) we have no space to fit 12.5mm plasterboard on the wall and use dot and dab or battens due to the door frame being shallow. We wondered about fitting the plasterboard direct to the wall using plugs and screws and have found some information on using these fixings (PlasticInsulationFixings) but I'm dubious about the weight of the tiles being held!

I would also like advice on tanking the area inside the shower and around the bath. The shower tray we have bought is Koralle and it has a fixing system that pulls the tray to the wall (you tile to the floor first) and then creates a seal. I've seen posts recommending using tileboard but haven't found any that can be attached to the wall directly, all advise using battens of some sort, so have been put off. Luckily the left hand wall is self contained as it will have the shower, then a small gap and then it's the doorway with a small piece of wall over. I've looked at the Bal WP1 information but other people are recommending membrane but it seems to be four times the price for what we need (shower is a 900 pentangle, wall is 2280 metres high plus 700 for each end of the bath and 1700 width for the bath itself at around 0.5 metres high which I calculate as being around 5.7 square metres).

Finally, I promise, can I have advice on removal panels to put in the bath panel, below the wall hung basin and near the toilet. As the tiles are so large I'm worrying about using the magnets but other methods appear to be far more visible. Any thoughts?

 

[doug boardley]

Hi Maggi, tanking isn't my speciality but someone will soon get to you on that! You mentioned not having room for 12.5 mm p/board on the door wall,is it a stud wall, ie not masonry? if so can you not fix p/board with longer gyproc drywall screws? good luck
Doug

 

[Maggi]

Thanks for the swift reply Doug. All our internal walls are some sort of blockwork (built in the 1970s). I suppose one of my main worries is that the screws will go straight through and blow the board; I've seen other people suggest washers?

We put up acres of plasterboard in our old house including a cathedral ceiling but that was all fastened to wood of some sort.

 

[doug boardley]

Maggi, the 20kg weight limit applies to plasterboard that has been skimmed, as yours is a masonry wall with a plaster base (is it sand and cement) and skim coat, I'm sure that you're safe upto 28kg, that includes the adhesive at, say, 4kg/m2, so it looks as though it'll be ok to take the weight of your tiles after all!:santa_cheesy:

 

[White Room]

If it was a plaster base, float and set would go for 20kg and the same if a finish on a render personally but if the finish can be removed a good render will take 40kg

 

[White Room]

Check this Tiles and Adhesive Weight Per Square Metre - THE TILE SOURCE may help you decide

 

[doug boardley]

built in '70's? what's it gonna be, browning or sand and cement? could be either! any chance of scraping a bit of the skim coat off and letting us know Maggi?

 

[Maggi]

Apologies for the delay in replying. We had the electricians here doing first fix yesterday and since then have had no lights (they're coming back Monday to sort it out) so thank goodness I bought a laptop with a backlit keyboard. The headtorch has been coming in handy too as has the wind up torch.
I've looked at where the previous tiles and adhesive brought off the skim and the wall is a mid brown, rough texture. Having seen sand and cement before and it was grey then perhaps this is browning. However, it's a very very thin layer onto the cinder block; I'd say the render and the skim combined is no more than a few mm and it comes off quite easily under not much pressure.
Back to the plasterboard idea I think so I'm still stuck on how to fix it without battens! Can you attach plasterboard to a wall with screws and plugs and if so, how do you stop the screws going straight through the surface? We already have a plasterboard screw bit for the drill driver but I wasn't sure we could use plasterboard screws into plugs.
Still need advice on tanking and concealed access if anybody has any ideas. Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to reply so far 🙂

 

[White Room]

I would remove the plaster backing as it's seems very weak. The plasterboard can be dot and dabbed, Here's link for you broken link removed

 

[doug boardley]

it also sounds as though door casing is to shallow to accomodate a decent depth of plaster, have you thought about fitting a deeper door casing?