my wetroom diary!

[dagger]

due to a recent experience with some potential customers i have decided to share what i am doing this week, its a wetroom in se london.

i have constructed it from start to finish,

we all know that there are many ways to achieve a rock solid wetroom,
in this instance i have gone for a fibreglass reinforced.

i will keep this up for the rest of the week because my "potential" customer wants to see how i would construct his!

anyway,

here i have installed a wedi tray, a 1.5m2 heat mat and self leveled to tray height.

and here i have plastered all the walls so there is no holes around the tray and the walls are flat:

today i fibreglassed and tanked the walls and floor, did a water check and all is well for tiling tommorrow!

 

[Prem Tiler]

great post I love these kind of post's but more info would be great like which brand of materials you used and time scales.

 

[dagger]

great post I love these kind of post's but more info would be great like which brand of materials you used and time scales.

a day to install and polyplumb the tray.
a day and a half to plaster the whole room including the two celings in that room (celieng over doorway).
a lonnnnnnng day to fibreglass the wetroom.
oh i forgot half a day to install the heatmat and self level!

as for the total materials i would use and how i do it i am going to keep it to myself, with all due respect this is how people try to "give it a go!" and thats how my potential client got shafted!

if you have any questions please pm me and i will do my best to help you out in your situations!

thanks, and i hope you understand!

 

[Hawkofeagles]

Looking good dagger..

 

[Prem Tiler]

No problems dagger understood.

But in all fairness, if a ''give it a go'' merchant were to gather info on how to install a wet room i think they are more than likely to of already got the job and going to do it regardless. I just think they stand a much better chance of making a success of it with your (a time served professional tiler) guidelines than trying to follow something out of a book.

Saying that I do understand where your coming from some times too much info can be counter productive to any industry.

And lets face it, My 14month old lil girl could do a better job than billy the kid did with that poor couples 'Damp room'

 

[dagger]

No problems dagger understood.

But in all fairness, if a ''give it a go'' merchant were to gather info on how to install a wet room i think they are more than likely to of already got the job and going to do it regardless. I just think they stand a much better chance of making a success of it with your (a time served professional tiler) guidelines than trying to follow something out of a book.

Saying that I do understand where your coming from some times too much info can be counter productive to any industry.

And lets face it, My 14month old lil girl could do a better job than billy the kid did with that poor couples 'Damp room'

thanks prem, however some things are better off kept in the tilers arms, oh and the do a great pint at £0.39p so thats the place i will be in!

 

[Prem Tiler]

lol I thought this was in the arms. lol numpty ain't I?

 

[doug boardley]

what substrate did you skim onto dagger?, just wondering about your skim fully drying out prior to tanking.

 

[dagger]

what substrate did you skim onto dagger?, just wondering about your skim fully drying out prior to tanking.

as the photos show Doug it was plasterboard, but no need to worry, i was on other jobs back and forth, so no problems there, plastering had fully cured, but its a good point, always check your drying times people!!!!!

 

[dagger]

as the photos show Doug it was plasterboard, but no need to worry, i was on other jobs back and forth, so no problems there, plastering had fully cured, but its a good point, always check your drying times people!!!!!

a bit later on!!!!!!

 

[dagger]

Hi All,

Today i went back to this wetroom job so i have a few more pictures:

so we continue,

a good practice when working with certain natural stones (mainly travertine) is to back fill the tiles with adhesive before you stick them in place make sure you fill all the holes!:

Anyway, that said and done prior to this photograph i had obviously cut the shower envelope and dry fixed it to check for square in the room!

an hour or two later i had fixed the envelope in place:

and a bit closer in:

neatness and continuious lines are paramount, this is the bit of the room EVERYBODY is going to look at!

anyway, after a bit of a break i put the rest of the floor in over the underfloor heating i had installed previously:

oh before i forget in wetrooms i always put the floors in first!
there are reasons for this!

so tommorrow i will be going back to start wall tiling, sadly the wall tiles come from b and q and not these nice 60 x 40 travertines,
oh well i dont pick em, i stick em!

 

[Lawrence147]

Fantastic post dagger.

I wouldn't 'give it a go' until I had training/someone experienced with me on the job, but do you not need the floor to be sloping into the drain or was it already like this. If it wasn't, how would you create the slopes - plastering it freehand??:frown5:

 

[dagger]

hello all,

alright then, what can i tell you about todays events?

okay first of all i checked the entrance for level, this is so i can see if anyone has walked over the tiles before the adhesive has cured!!!!:

as you can see the digital bit of the level says 0.00 and there is no gap under the level.

this means the faries have not visited last night!!!:hurray:

the next think i did was clean up the drain and test the grate:

all is good in the hood!

so now i am going to start tiling but the tiles have a protective wax on them:

so i remove this outside before i put the tiles on the wall!
otherwise it gets in the grout, makes a general mess and is a right pain to deal with later!

and off i go:

you should never dot and dab, ever, and especially not in a wetroom!

after i have my first course in i put a sheet down,
this is common sence in any tiling situation but in a wetroom if a bit of adhesive gets in an open grout join you have to get it out,
and what are you going to use? stanley,grout rake, screwdriver?
any of these can be fatal to the tanking membrane so lets just work cleanly!

first wall is up and i am still not dabbin!

no dabbin yet!

mind you i did the plastering so if i was packing out i would look really silly now!!

anyway, first bit of tile trim goes in:

and from the other side:

so were into day two of tiling and i am halfway (ish) round the room!

thanks!

 

[dagger]

Oh and by the way,

the wall tiles come from b&q and are exactly the same as the Padova range from topps, and both of them are RUBBISH, each and every tile is a different size, it is impossible to get perfect grout joins!
you have to open and close joints!
cheap for a reason, and it is a shame they are so sizey because the look quite good!

 

[andy-p]

good informative posts dagger !! how much a pain was it getting that wax off and why not grout floor before tiling walls so no crap goes into joints??

 

[dagger]

good informative posts dagger !! how much a pain was it getting that wax off and why not grout floor before tiling walls so no crap goes into joints??

get the wax off with a stanley blade (easy peasy)

as for grouting the floor:

if you grout it you get crap on it and have to do a serious clean,
if you dont grout it and work clean, you dont need to get the grouting gear out or need to clean it!

i am a time and motion man me!:lol::lol::lol:

 

[dagger]

not much to report today as i spent most of the day pressure testing the new waste pipes we have installed (toilet waste, sink waste, and the trap in the shower!)
this is needed so we can show the building inspector that the new pipework we have installed are not leaking, the pipes must hold pressure for five minutes, and guess what, there was a pressure leak, so with bungs in all the pipework i began to isolate all the individual waste pipes and search for that pesky leak!!

found the leak hours later and it was a bit of tile adhesive on the bung in the basin waste pipe creating a space so the bung could not seal the pipe properly, cleaned the bung, plugged it back in, checked the pressure gauge and called the building inspector!:hurray::hurray::hurray::hurray:

i managed to do a little bit of tiling but only 1 wall so not much to see:

 

[tileexperts]

thats some job, fair play mate.
your doing a great job.
cant wait to see wen its finished. thanks for sharing it with us

 

[Daveyboy]

Looking good dagger...

 

[Prem Tiler]

What a top job you do!

Looks great. I see you used tape around the trim is this give to give it a little helping hand while setting? Great idear with these big tiles.

 

[STINGRAY30]

really enjoyed reading this post!! excellent work!!

 

[chris.tiling]

fantastic post Dagger - great for all to see a job in progress. Looks a great room too - well done mate

 

[Rob Z]

Dagger, thanks for showing all of us how your job is going. I like seeing these shots of a typical install in the UK. It is a rare thing here in the US where the bathroom gets comprehensive waterproofing like you guys do on your jobs.

 

[dagger]

I have just got off the telephone with my potential customer and given him the unfortunate news how much it will cost to remove and replace his "wetroom" and pointed him in the direction of this post,
so i hope he finds this informative and reassuring!

and thank you to you guys for all the input!

Dagger

 

[dagger]

Hello all!!

back to work today on the wetroom in SE London,

after a coffee and a minute or two i started tiling:

Someone on this forum must have loved my advice about putting a sheet down after the first course was on the wall because i could not find that sheet ANYWHERE!

anyway, an hour or so later:

the next thing i had to do was put in the wall that goes over the entrance, always a little tricky so i reached for my phone to call my mummy, not really i just put the kettle on again!

after my beverage:

i start to put the wall up, still struggling with the +/- 2mm difference in size of the tiles. (b & q people!).

a bit later i had this:

and the other side:

and a bit of a wider angle:

so, all that is left to do is the two returns and ceiling that forms the entrance to the wetroom, i will do them tommorrow and grout the lot.
siliconing and a small repair to the floor in the bedroom (i did not lay it or break it) will have to wait.

needless to say i wont be doing all that tommorrow!

thanks

Dagger.